took me years to realize that making money isn’t actually the hard part in this game the real test is everything that comes after: building the discipline to earn it systematically instead of by luck developing the emotional control to manage it when size starts messing with your head possessing the maturity and patience to actually keep it for the next 10, 20 years sitting on your hands when the market goes dead, instead of getting bored and gambling it all away protecting the bag is an entirely different skill set from making it

An update on our estimates, and some context on how we allocate capital. @RobinhoodCrypto x @Lighter_xyz 1/ Blended estimate for a book split roughly 50/50 between crypto and stock perps: Live Points ≈ 5.5 per $1M OI-week OI component inside the Weekly Drop ≈ 15.5 Total ≈ 21 points per $1M OI-week Crypto-heavy books appear to earn more than this, while stock-heavy books appear to earn less. Rates also seem to move week to week, so treat these as averages, not constants. 2/ Estimated gross reward APR at 20x gross OI, assuming issuance continues at roughly 130K points per week: Program ends in December → ~2.3M total points $LIT $2 → 12% $LIT $3 → 18% $LIT $4 → 24% $LIT $5 → 30% The later the program ends, the more each point is diluted. 3/ These are gross APR estimates from rewards, before funding, basis and hedge PnL, and execution costs. Liquidation risk also needs to be considered. If the data says otherwise, these estimates will be revised again. 4/ We generally target minimum annual returns above 20% on the capital we deploy in crypto. For us, the 17% - 18% range is an attractive benchmark for leveraged funding arbitrage, given the capital and ongoing work involved. That sets the bar. If another strategy requires additional work or risk, we want a higher expected return to justify it. 5/ Below our target, we do not think the expected return offers enough compensation for the risks we take by deploying capital in crypto. That is why we see value in trading on Lighter through Robinhood Chain and earning rewards along the way. We assess the overall expected return, accounting for rewards, funding, basis and hedge PnL, and execution costs. When that clears our hurdle, the strategy makes economic sense for us. 6/ Opportunities like @variational_io do not come around every day. In between, we think it is worth considering strategies where we can form a clearer view of the expected rewards and the risks involved, then allocate capital accordingly. Good Luck

The Variational protocol has crossed $400B in total volume processed. More than $100B of this volume has been since the launch of swaps last month.