@0xLamps @LayerZero_Core More life. It was a pleasure to be in the trenches with you ser 🤝
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Bill
1.9K posts
Bill
@smokercrypto_
It pays to be optimistic; building @Optimism, prev @layerzero_core
NYC Katılım Haziran 2021
978 Takip Edilen1.2K Takipçiler
Last week I wrapped up my time with the wonderful @LayerZero_Core team.
I have spent the last 3 years working tirelessly with the smartest people I’ve ever met, building something I am truly passionate about. I am incredibly proud of everything we did for Stargate, and LayerZero more recently.
Ultimately being an intimate part of ~80 chain launches over the last couple years has taken a toll on me & it’s time to touch grass for a bit.
The bridge is home & Stargate is left in the safest of hands, LayerZero will continue dominating interop, and Zero will blow your minds. To be very explicit - LZ, and Zero, will win and my belief in the technology and the team is at an all time high.
Through it all, I could not be more grateful for the opportunity and learnings. A true honour.
Ad Astra.
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lots of love for @LayerZero_Core today- everything coming to fruition.
gg to @PrimordialAA and team 🙂
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gg @lucacs proud of you luca noise !! 🚀
Noise@noise_xyz
Noise is excited to announce a $7.1M Series Seed led by @paradigm
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I’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while.
The truth is… Optimism did too much and focused too little. We massively over-hired without a clear strategy. And token price is in the gutter.
We’ve been bathing in tactics for a long time, clinging to previous successes like launching Base, Ink, Unichain, Worldchain, Soneium… without building the operating machinery to continue that momentum into a market that’s dramatically different today.
Sun Tzu says: “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
For a long time, I rationalized our difficulties as due to regulatory uncertainty, market noise, and the impossibility of coordinating 3+ independent organizations. But at this point, doesn’t matter.
The world today is vastly different than when Optimism started. So we’ve been upgrading Optimism for this new world. We’ve parted ways with many talented teammates, re-unified execution under a single entity, and re-built our engineering and enterprise sales orgs.
The goal is simple:
1. Build the most scalable financial infrastructure
2. Bring enterprises and their assets onchain
3. Maximize the productivity of those assets
Enterprise deals are now a competitive space. When we talk to these enterprises, we see Solana, Tempo, Arbitrum, Avalanche, all trying to help enterprises come onchain.
But I’m confident OP Stack is going to beat them all.
Why?
The OP Stack is the only stack that has successfully brought & scaled multiple enterprises onchain. We’ve seen what works & what doesn’t work. We’ve earned this knowledge by—honestly—wasting a lot of money. We’ve seen every single enterprise blockchain failure mode because we’ve been doing this longer than anyone else.
Here’s why enterprises consistently end up choosing OP Stack: enterprises’ expectations on scale and reliability are far beyond what Web3 is used to, and the OP Stack is the closest to what enterprises need. That’s not a coincidence - we’ve co-developed this infrastructure alongside the fastest growing enterprise in web3: Base.
At the end of the day, enterprises want to control their own economics. They aren't gonna be sharecroppers on Stripe's blockchain.
The OP Stack vision will win. Shared standards balanced with chain autonomy.
The starting gun is now. See you in the ring.
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While others chase logos, we’re heads down creating real value for the world. $16.8B/mo of value to be precise.
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It’s been a great 2.5 years in the @monad Community, time to reflect on some of my favorite highlights:
- Worked for 2 big Monad eco projects (@LayerZero_Core and @LFJ_gg)
- 3-time guest on MITM
- Distributed over $100k to fellow Monad Community members
- Played in Monad Games
- Went to 3 community meetups (Brussels, LA, NYC)
- Founded 1st NFT project on Monad (@MonadNomadsNFT)
- Onboarded @puresoul0109 to his first of many roles within the Eco (I’m so sorry for this)
- Mentored at the evm/accathon at ETH Denver
- Met hella chads IRL from the community/team
- Onboarded 100+ community members to Monad
- Won 4 POAPs in poker
- Presented on Monad Shark Tank
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Was 2 months early, and ETH drew down quite a bit before the stone cold bottom.
Not afraid to say I was wrong with the timing.
As a trader you have to know when to flip (was max bear ETH for most of this cycle) sentiment.
When price moves against you or you feel absorption you should question if your thesis is transitory or permanent.
Most theses in crypto are transitory by nature so you should constantly be rethinking through invalidations.
Was how a few rly strong traders I know exited SOL at the top when they were bull at the bottom.
hdf@PaikCapital
it might be time. believe ETH might finally have it's day soon. >> ethbtc looks atrocious >> after SBR, narrative for btc lessens >> EF capitulation and drama >> sentiment at ATL >> eth is institutional >> larry wants to tokenize everything (on eth) >> everyone who ever longed has been rinsed GM.
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Lastly, want to thank my family at @LayerZero_Core , the sharpest, smartest and most genuine people I've met in the industry.
After almost 2.5 years at LZ, I'm still incredibly thankful for @PrimordialAA and @MaybeMaxPower for all the guidance along the way.
LayerZero solved one of the hardest problems in crypto and now dominates interop completely, and I'm highly convicted it will continue to open up what's possible in this space.
Obligatory shoutout to @labsUSD and @SmokerCrypto 🔥
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GM friends, quick personal update.
I’ve joined @GTE_XYZ as Head of Growth to accelerate the adoption of onchain finance.
From farming six-figure yields to onboarding multi-billion dollar asset issuers to trading all the tokens we love and/or hate, I’ve only grown more convinced that all of finance is upgrading to composable, permissionless onchain rails.
From memecoins to majors to tradfi assets, GTE is building the one interface to bet on the world where value creation and value exchange converge.
The surface is barely scratched and there’s an insane amount of work to be done. @enzo_gte , @mlunghi2000 and the team are ready.
LFGTE.
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Extremely excited to announce the launch of my next venture: Novora.
@Novora_ is a crypto-native proprietary investment firm. We invest across public and private markets and actively support ambitious teams building at the frontier. Novora’s mission is to help visionary entrepreneurs build transformative companies and protocols disrupting open capital markets and technology. At Novora, we don’t just fund the frontier — we forge it alongside our partners.
For those that know me, crypto has been a deep passion of mine since day one. I entered the space in 2016 and went full-time in 2017. I launched my first crypto startup while in college. It ultimately failed, but it gave me a chip on my shoulder that I’ve carried ever since — one that fueled the next eight years of relentless work, learning, and growth.
Fresh out of college, I took a leap and joined a then-tiny startup called MoonPay — fewer than 10 people at the time, completely bootstrapped. I was the first growth hire, focused on building out the growth and GTM function. In just over a year, we grew the team to 70+, laid the groundwork for a global payments business, and built one of the most transformative products in crypto. MoonPay would go on to raise one of the largest funding rounds in industry history, expand to 180+ countries, and onboard 30 million users.
Over time, I realized that while building at MoonPay was incredibly rewarding, my heart was still tethered to the capital markets side of the industry. That led me to Arca, a then-early-stage asset management firm in LA. I wore a lot of hats: BD, IR, liquid investing. I helped personally raise over $35M from institutional investors, launched new initiatives, and deepened my understanding of asset management and capital formation. Being at Arca during the first wave of institutional adoption was an invaluable experience.
In 2022, I had the opportunity to join Social Capital and work alongside Chamath to build out and run their first liquid crypto fund. At the time, they had made a few venture bets in the space but hadn’t yet entered liquid markets — so I came on to lead that effort from scratch. It was a unique experience, and I was fortunate to learn from several sharp traditional long/short portfolio managers. Although I was focused solely on crypto, many of the frameworks, disciplines, and mental models I absorbed carried over directly. At the end of the day, markets are markets — no matter the asset class. Unfortunately, during the 2022 drawdown, the firm decided to cut exposure to the asset class, however, the experience was deeply rewarding and left a lasting impact on how I think and invest.
If you were involved in the industry in 2022, you know how brutal it was. At one point, it was the lowest low I had ever experienced personally. Life punches you hard in the gut sometimes. But during those moments, you realize how cyclical life can be — and you have to dig deep and decide whether to stay down or rise stronger. I took some personal time off at the end of that year to reflect on what I wanted to do next and how I wanted to spend my time. I felt a strong urge to return to building and operating — to contribute something productive to the space.
That journey brought me to Irys, a small but mighty team building powerful infrastructure for the onchain world. When I joined, we were a 7-person team. No one really knew who we were. We didn’t have much of a footprint — but we had built something incredibly valuable. Over the next 18 months, we raised additional capital, generated 7-figures in annual revenue, scaled the team, and found our stride – driving impact at a global scale. That chapter was truly special. It brought me to NYC, allowed me to explore the world, and gave me lifelong friendships.
In October of last year, I stepped away from the company to begin the next chapter — to pursue my own goals. I knew I wanted to build something of my own. After a lot of reflection and conversations with close friends and mentors, the vision started to crystallize. I wanted to create something that allowed me to pursue my true passions: investing and operating.
I’ve long been inspired by investment firms in traditional markets that take an activist approach — operating alongside the companies they invest in and driving real outcomes. That philosophy stuck with me.
Novora was born from a simple but powerful idea:
That an investment firm in crypto shouldn’t just allocate capital, but should build alongside the teams it backs.
That we can bring a principal mindset to early-stage partnerships.
That activism, strategic support, and hands-on collaboration belong in this space — especially in public markets.
And that it’s not only possible, but necessary, to blend investing and operating in a way that drives meaningful, long-term impact.
Earlier this year, I came across a blog post by Graham Weaver titled “How to Live an Asymmetric Life”. Weaver highlights how principles from investing can be applied to personal growth, and most importantly, he emphasizes seeking opportunities where potential gains significantly outweigh the potential loss. In the blog, there are four key principles he outlines:
Do Hard Things
Do Your Thing
Do It for Decades
Write Your Story
These words stuck with me. Because when you pursue meaningful work, commit to the long term, and take a bet on yourself — you unlock the chance for deeply asymmetric outcomes. Starting a company might be one of the most asymmetric things you can do in life.
At a time when crypto feels directionless — when leadership is often missing, or worse, driven by ego over integrity — I believe there’s a real need for people to step up with purpose. I’m not perfect, but I aspire to lead with character, consistency, and class. To operate with integrity. To show up for others. And to lead by example — not just in what I say, but in how I build, invest, and treat people along the way.
I’m incredibly grateful for every chapter that’s led to this one. Each role, each relationship, each risk — they’ve all equipped me to take this leap. Thank you to my family, friends, and mentors who’ve supported me along the way. I’ll never forget it.
The best stories are the ones still being written. This is only the beginning.
More life.
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0 to 1
now time for 1 to 100
LayerZero is endgame for interop.
LayerZero@LayerZero_Core
150,000,000 messages moved across chains. Sent by hundreds of apps, billions in tokens. The rails for crypto are being laid at internet scale.
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Bill retweetledi
@danreecer_ @BlackRock @apolloglobal Lol does that mean if I wrap BTC I now power $2 Trillion in assets? Did @solana themselves own this or did you wrap SOL in a way anybody can wrap SOL? If 5 people wrap SOL should they all claim $82B x 5 powered? Let's try to use some legitimate metrics here for sake of industry
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