Into the Deep Waters of Crypto Trading with 0xDorsal

My guest today is 0xDorsal, Co-founder and core contributor of Integral. Integral is a new DeFi primitive that efficiently executes large orders. It is the only such primitive with a functional product to date and is poised to capture the exact segment of large client trading volume for DeFi. Integral is the pioneer in executing large orders in DeFi. It works smart by executing an order according to an oracle’s average price over time (currently, it’s Uniswap’s 5-min TWAP). To offer a competitive price with nearly 0% price impact, Integral mirrors order-book and AMM from some of the best centralized and decentralized exchanges and create a highly liquidity-rich environment for these large orders to execute. This technology mimics how the centralized exchanges process large orders: split and execute them over a period of time. This is made possible with the OB-AMM. The innovative AMM design unbundles the concept of liquidity to depth (order book depth, AMM shape) and capital (the actual amount of LP asset in the order book or AMM). By mirroring order books from exchanges like Binance and Uniswap, Integral can achieve the same depth with much less capital. 0xDorsal is the pseudonymous co-founder of Integral, the world’s first DeFi primitive for large orders. Dorsal’s background as a hedge fund manager positioned him well to help drive the migration from TradFi to DeFi. Dorsal has extensive experience as a business development lead within DeFi. In addition to his work at Integral, Dorsal is especially interested in market design, liquidity, DAOs, and coordination. We discuss various topics, including Integral, the evolution of DEXs, building a crypto project, and much more. We begin our conversation by discussing 0xDorsal’s Tradfi background. 0xDorsal discusses how his TradFi background prepared him to understand the current crypto landscape and gave him context to how the crypto trading industry is headed. We transition to discuss the evolution of Dex’s. We discuss the original DEXs like Etherdelta and IDEX and the significant shortcomings they experienced. And how these original DEXs gave rise to the next evolution of decentralized exchanges like Uniswap. 0xDorsal discusses why Uniswap v2 was a watershed moment in crypto’s history. We discuss the various problems plaguing the current DEX space, like front-running, MEVs, and flashbots. We dive deep into the various issues and how they impact a trader’s PNL. Our next conversation topic centered around Integral and how the project is tackling these various problems to create a better experience for large and small traders. 0xDorsal explains how Integral has innovated the AMM model. 0xDorsal explains how TWAMM works and why it’s so innovative. We transition to discuss the future of Integral. We touch on Integral’s possible future product offerings and their road map. 0xDorsal explains how they plan on building a decentralized OTC desk and the possibility of building atomic swaps into the project to enable cross-chain compatibility. We also discuss why they have decided to build a pseudonymous team and the benefits of pseudonymity. Our final discussion topic centered around the future of the crypto industry and where the crypto is headed. Please enjoy my conversation with 0xDorsal. -- This podcast is powered by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at https://blockworks.co