Drift brings on-chain, cross-margined perpetual futures to Solana and is one of its most widely-used DeFi applications. The Drift team has been around since Solana's early days and has an ambitious vision to bring financial primitives historically only available on CEXs to the world of permissionless finance. Throughout this episode, we chat with Cindy and Chris to learn about Drift's architecture, strategy, differentiators, and endgame.

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Time Stamps

(0:00) - Origins of Drift

(2:27) - Why trade perps

(6:35) - Why perps never gained popularity in tradfi

(10:34) - How to manage risks around offering leverage 

(12:34) - How would you handle BonkGuy’s current bet

(15:49) - Purpose of the insurance fund

(17:08) - Strategy behind product expansion

(19:27) - Sourcing maker liquidity

(26:42) - Targeting specific user segments

(29:05) - Importance of on-chain order books

(31:06) - UX strategy

(35:44) - Jup Perps vs Drift

(37:58) - Pre-token perps

(39:56) - Benefits of perps on Solana vs app chains

(41:44) - How sticky is the TVL?

(44:50) - Drift’s endgame

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Podcast Resources

Follow Sal: https://twitter.com/salxyz

Follow Dave: https://twitter.com/SolBeachBum

Follow Unlayered: https://twitter.com/UnlayeredPod

Subscribe on Spotify, Apple, or Google: https://unlayered.io/

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UnlayeredPod

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Episode Resources

Follow Cindy : https://Twitter.com/CindyLeowTT

Follow Chris : https://Twitter.com/Chrispheaney

Follow Drift Protocol : https://Twitter.com/DriftProtocol