Margin Trade - One Account, Every Market

This is the Brave New Coin crypto conversation hosted by Andy Pickering. My guest today is Margie. Margie is the head of marketing at Solaya, the Solana compatible layer one and they've just launched a margin trade which of course is an on-chain perps dext on solana welcome to the show margie hi andy nice to meet you it's such an honor to be here it is a pleasure let's do what we do at the beginning of the show it'd be super cool if you could yeah introduce yourself just tell us a little bit about what you've been doing in the lead up to joining the team at solana yeah so my name is margie i'm leading marketing for margin trade as well as solair which is the brand that launched margin trade um so before i entered web three i was doing marketing at big main which is uh the world's largest asic manufacturer um it's about all about like bitcoin mining like crypto mining etc and before crypto mining i was actually doing PR and marketing in the automotive industry.

I know it's a far stretch. So I serve clients, including BMW, Genesis, those luxury cars. Yeah. Yeah.

Nice. Very nice. All right. Well, to begin with, it'd be good just to set the scene.

Maybe just tell us a little bit about Solaya and its place in the Solana ecosystem. system and then you will start to learn about margin trade. Yeah, sure. I think Solair is one of the top projects on Solata.

We started as a restaking protocol and then we launched our own chain called InfiniSVM, which targets to reach a million plus TPS. And now we're at 330k TPS and that's a pretty fast chain. And we also have another product called Solayer Pay, which is a USDC card. Allows users to spend USDC anywhere, anytime.

And this year, we launched MarginTrade. So this is our new flagship product, and we're putting a lot of efforts on it. Yes, and I think MarginTrade went to mainnet, well, earlier this month, I think. So, yeah, we'll explain a little bit more about what margin trade is and who it's for.

So margin trade, we launched it not long ago. We went into mainnet. And basically, we want to provide users a place where they can manage different assets in one portfolio. So instead of fragmenting your collateral across every position, you have got one pool backing everything, including crypto perps, commodity, equity, and we provide users capital efficiency.

So your margin is not spread across five different places. That's one highlight about margin trade. And it matters now because of the timing. We have been rapidly expanding what you can actually trade.

So including like GPU mine tokens like Perl, we're actually the first ever platform to list Perl research token, Perl. And besides that, we have equities like NVIDIA, Tesla, SpaceX. We have been announcing nonstop last week. So every day we have a new listing.

So unified margin is what makes that breadth usable instead of just a long list. And you can express a full market view from a single account. And that's the unlock. And the launch moment, people will remember, maybe, is Perl.

So Perl Research was our flagship listing. It's the clearest expression of what makes us different. It's a GPU mine token driven by AI compute. And we built a minor hedging angle around it.

So if you're mining Perl, MarginTrade is the first place. You can actually hedge that exposure. and no other per venue is listing per at the moment. And the other thing that we have that we are proud of is the smart ADL system.

So the auto-deleveraging is what keeps the platform solvent when markets get violent and ours is built to be precise about it instead of bluntly punishing whoever happens to be winning. So when you're listing volatile, newly mindable assets And that risk engine is what makes the whole multi-asset bus safe to actually trade on. So we want to make it a safe trade instead of, you know, only punishing the winners, only punishing the people who make the most. And that's some of the biggest impact on traders for margin trade.

Yeah, because if you go to the margin trade website or you go to the platform, it says, yeah, like no one trader takes the full hit. So it's finally fair auto-deliveraging. So just explain that again. So it's like whoever is, yeah, people who are in winning positions won't necessarily get smashed first is one way of putting it, Margie.

Yeah, so most of the other prep decks, they will leverage the people, the user who make the most, who want the most. And then our platform, I would say it's a bit fair. So it doesn't really only punish the people who make the first. It kind of, everybody takes a small slice of it.

Yeah. Exactly right. And so you are part of the marketing team, Margie. So how do you go about marketing a new platform like MarginTrade?

What does that look like in today's fragmented crypto ecosystem? I would say it's a very interesting experience because my whole career has been about translating new stuff complicated stuff into easy concepts that average users can understand And so I just mentioned like I started my marketing career in automotive industry And by the time I joined, I didn't know anything about cars. I only recognized BMW or Mercedes logos. And that's all I know about.

But when I was in the coffee team, so I have to know everything about cars so that's a big learning curve that i was experiencing and then i went into crypto mining i joined bitmain and by that time i didn't know anything about crypto mining or blockchain at all so i had to start over again for margin trade it's the same um actually before margin trade i have never marketed for a perp dox uh such a you know really finance oriented product. I've never marketed it. So it's a big learning curve for me too.

But that also gives me an advantage because I know what the average user might want to know or what they might not understand because I'm an average user that I'm not technical at all. So I think I can really market the product well because I can represent my users. So with margin trade, instead of simply announcing the new listings like everybody like every product else in the in the market we tell the users why we list a certain asset why is it a good asset to be put on perks or take the mining hatching a minor hatching idea instead of explaining um perpetual futures as a hatching instrument we tell miners something they already felt in their gut like you are long this token whether you like it or not because you mine the token.

And here's how you stop being forced long. Like some same information, but it lands because it starts from the pain, not our product. So it is really about telling a story that the users care about or addressing the pain points. So I think it's a very unique angle that we are marketing for margin trade because no, I don't think any other projects is marketing monetary like this way.

100%. And I guess, you know, you see a push across the industry at the moment to bring all sorts of traditional assets on chain. So there's a big push for tokenized equities, real-world assets, and, of course, you know, with what you guys are offering on margin trade, You've got crypto perps, commodities perps, and equity perps. So do you think this is just part of meeting that demand from not just, I suppose, crypto, but the wider trading community as well?

We've seen the big success of platforms like Hyperliquid, which is just meeting this demand to trade all sorts of different assets on chain, right? yeah it's interesting because um we discussed it internally as well um i think like we're talking about putting trap 5 on chain but most people will misread it as let's copy wall street um let's just list whatever wall street is listing but in my opinion that's not it because the point isn't to recreate something like recreate the gatekeeping is to give anyone the same toolkit without the gatekeep the gate like the gatekeeping so i don't think anyone will wake up and decide okay today i would just be a crypto person so you have a view on rates on nvidia on gold on token and historically you needed three different accounts to express that and we kind of collapsing that into one venue with on-chain settlement.

So crypto, commodities, equities, same place, same margin, and that's what on-chain actually buys you. It's not a copy of the old system, but one surface for any view that you want to take. So I know it's a very, very competitive market now, but we're not trying to compete with other products. We just want to market in an angle that nobody else has.

right now. I just want to play an entirely different game. Yeah, makes sense. All right, well, let's dig into that.

If you wanted to, if you were marketing marginal trade on that one angle, what is that one angle? Like in a sentence or two, how do you kind of define that? So we started as the first platform that lists Perl. and nobody else has listed Pearl research token.

And there's a reason for it. So I would say that... So first of all, we kind of hear, like we did some research about Pearl and then we know that Pearl Research has a very good narrative and a very active community. but then we realized that there's nowhere else that lists the pearl anywhere, not hyperliquid, not any other competitors in the market.

So we also kind of did research about the narrative behind it, which is AI compute, and now everything is about AI. So we look into the white paper and everything, and we think that this is a token that has great potential. and it's a shame that nobody is listing it. So we kind of, I think we took a risky angle and a fun angle and especially in a such saturated market, we need to be different and we need to let people know that we're different.

So that's the one strategy that we have for a market trade to list Pearl. Makes sense. And besides listing pearl, what is the most, I guess, highly traded assets on margin trade? What are traders doing at the moment?

Oh, yeah. So we already see a lot of pearl miners coming in but they not doing really big trade i think they just testing the water and then doing small ones um and we very happy to see that they're actually making money out of it um i think the other one is um oh the ai stocks for sure so um yeah the ai stocks are so popular um and we're listing um we're actively uh listing them And we are going to have a semiconductor week to list all the semiconductor tokens, all the stocks as well.

So basically, I would say BTC, Bitcoin is a big one too that people are trading. We have seen some really interesting order, like 20x short something. So yeah, so that's one. um ai stocks and a semiconductor stocks yeah yeah i mean interesting yeah there's an one um that i am proposing so i propose a nike because uh it's a world cup now so it will be an interest one that people might want to trade it's not a very like famous stock but it's an interesting one since it's World Cup timing now.

Did you say 90? Yeah. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Well, you have to move fast, get that on chain really quickly. So, yeah, while the World Cup is still going, right? Yes, yes. And what about like the Solana, I guess the wider Solana ecosystem?

How would you describe the kind of the mood in the Solana community? at the moment. It's quite an interesting time in crypto. Obviously, I guess we're in the depths of the bear market.

Ethereum has struggled for a long time. Where is the Solana community at? Do you see positive times ahead, shall we say? um i think solana community is um made of very active builders and a lot of innovations um for now from what i see the community is still very very active i guess in the bear market they're just more focused on you know building stuff um and instead of you know going to a lot of different events it's definitely not as like crazy as uh when it was in the bull market but i can see that solana community like always continues to build like never stop building so i think that's a very optimistic sign of a community that we're building actual product that people will like people will actually use so um i see that one thing i see is uh payment it's very very active a lot of products in the market.

Also, there are so many, like, a lot of, like, prep techs in the market as well. So people are actually building a lot of things. Oh, yeah, agents, everything. So.

Yeah. Okay. And for people who want to perhaps have a play around on margin trade, what is the easiest way for people to do exactly that? Margie, where should people go and what should they do?

How do they do it? Yeah, it's very easy. just go to app.margin.

trade. And it's a very simple onboarding process. And also we are launching a affiliate program where you can get 15% of the trading fees from your referees. So that's pretty nice.

And if you, you know, refer to a certain number of referees, we will customize your percentage of rebate. So you just have fun trading. yeah it's a very easy onboarding process yes indeed and that link will be in the show notes folks yeah margin.trade that means it's time to start to finish off the podcast Margie and we do that by running you through the very famous crypto conversation hot take round are you up for it?

just going to run some questions at you and I just want you to give me your honest kind of hot take style answers Margie question one for you is Where would you say that you sit on the Bitcoin maximalist to multi-chain opportunist spectrum? For me, because I do hold some Bitcoin. Not a lot, but I put half of it in the cold wallet. And half of it, I just put it in the trading exchanges, is kind of like check what's going on and then hold herself.

I actually do not have a lot of other tokens. I only have BTC, so that makes me a Bitcoin message. Okay, well, what would you say then is your firmest conviction crypto opinion? My favorite?

Oh, that's a good question. I didn't think about it. Famous six-point collection. No, I just mean, what's a crypto opinion that you believe in?

Oh, it will revolutionize the whole financial system that I really believe in. All right, well, another way of thinking about this, Margie, is, you know, it's a quote from Bill Gates, who famously said that we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in two years and underestimate what we can accomplish in 10. So, you know, 10 years is a very long time, but anything you like here, you know, decentralized finance, DeFi, on-chain capital markets, margin trade, Solana, what does it all look like in 10 years' time?

Wow, that's a crazy question because I don't even think people can answer it in like five days what will happen because it happens so fast. I feel like a day in crypto is like a year in other like traditional markets So I can see that a lot of builders are working on like combining AI and crypto together I'm very, very curious to see what it will look like in 10 years. There are a lot of room for imagination. And I cannot see the direction where it's going.

I know there are a lot of like AI payments. I know that maybe there will be a lot of like, I feel like one, each person will have its own AI agent, like a secretary to manage the financial product, the portfolio, everything. I think that will totally happen. An AI agent help you to trade.

I think that's already happening. An AI agent that will help you buy stuff using staple point. So I think that's already happening and I cannot even imagine what it will look like in 10 years. It's beyond my imagination.

Yes, indeed. Very well said. Look, another way of thinking about this is a quote by sci-fi author William Gibson who famously said that the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed.

So, you know, with that in mind, And Margie, can you think of an example of the future being here right now, but most people aren't aware of it? Do you know a show called Black Mirror? I do. Yeah.

It is my very, very favorite show that I would recommend to anyone. So for those of you who haven't watched it, It's like a sci-fi series that kind of imagines how new technologies will bring changes to our everyday life. It's very, very dark. That's why I like it.

And what amazes me is that many of the technologies that mentioned in the Black Mirror series are already happening or about to happen. So I think by the time I watched the series, I never thought any of it will actually happen. but then I feel like I'm ready living in the future because I see so many imaginations have come true in our daily life. And then I was wondering what the next series will be because there are so many new things happening and I'm curious to see what they will imagine in what they will create in the next series.

so I think I think we are already living in a future that I haven't really thought about before and there are so many things coming true already I'm kind of like nervous but also excited to see what will happen in the future what technology will change our lives how technology will change our lives Yes, indeed. Very well said again and could not agree more. Black Mirror is a great series and kind of leads us very nicely into the final question. You can use Black Mirror as your answer if you want or come up with something different because the question is, what is your favorite science fiction movie, TV show or book?

blackmail. I cannot say anything else. I also like the three body problem. I read the book before.

Do you know that? That's one of the most famous sci-fi novel. It is, yeah. Because when I ask podcast guests this question, Margie, one of the most popular answers has been the three body problem, the book.

Well, I have not read the book, but I've seen the Netflix show, and I know season two is coming soon. Yes, oh my gosh. So I have always been very fascinated about space. I also bought space ads.

But I always want to know, I always think, yeah, there are aliens in the space, but we just haven't found it yet. So that book really amazed me. And I think that's one of my favorite, favorite novels. Although I can only understand, you know, 80% of it because there are so many like terms that I don't understand about typical terms.

That's one thing. That's one novel that I really like. All right. Well, that is a cool place to finish off, I think, Mauchi.

So just to finish off, again, Just tell people how they can get involved with what you and the team are building at Solar. And of course, how people can get started trading on a margin trade. Where should people go? Yeah.

So if you want to know more about margin trade, you can follow our Axe account. It's margin underscore trade. on x we will post announcements new features new listings everything on x also if you want to know more about what margin trade is you can come to margin.trade our landing page where you can learn about our product also if you just want to you know try trading you can just go to app.

margin.trade to test it out and tell us what you think we are welcoming product feedback so we can give our users a better user experience. Awesome. Hey, thank you so much, Omoji.

This was a lot of fun. All the best and bye for now. Yeah, thank you so much, Eddie. This was a fun conversation.

Bye.