Lightspeed

Bringing State of the Art Perps to Solana | Jun Bug & kdot

Jan 22, 2026
Jun Bug, co-founder of BULK, and kdot, a fellow co-founder, dive into the complexities of building a high-performance perpetual exchange on Solana. They discuss the challenges of low latency and reliability, unveiling BULK's custom validator client designed for enhanced performance. The duo shares insights on their API-first approach to attract market makers and the innovative incentive structures for users. They also explore their roadmap, including a closed testnet launch and future expansion plans beyond perpetuals, promising a vibrant trading future.
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INSIGHT

Performance Plus Decentralization

  • Bulk blends sub-20ms performance with decentralization using a distributed validator operator set.
  • They provide a dedicated perp environment tuned for low latency traders and market makers.
ADVICE

Make Onboarding Plug-And-Play

  • Provide a simple API to onboard sophisticated flow rather than forcing them to build transaction-landing infrastructure.
  • Let market makers focus on pricing and spreads instead of engineering landing reliability and priority fees.
INSIGHT

Sidecar Validator Client

  • Bulk runs a forked validator client (Bulk Agave) as a sidecar to keep heavy matching and risk off Solana's block path.
  • That preserves composability while enabling compute-heavy risk simulation and rapid matching.
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