GUN: The Universal Intersubjective Meme Token
Ohio, gunslinger! Aren’t you tired of all the larp narratives? I know I am. Why does it feel like every aspect of this industry is focused on extracting as much value as possible from you, the trader? Seriously, everyday we hear about VC’s pouring 10’s of millions of dollars into the latest AI-powered modular FHE zk-L69, yet on-chain trading still feels like something built on tech made in the early 2000’s. On top of that, you have developers building solutions to purposefully attack you and your friends, stealing portions of their funds (hey it’s not stealing — it’s MEV bro).
I’m sorry but didn’t we set out to build a financial system where power isn’t in the hands of the few? Did we really just swap out greedy Wall Street execs for some autistic devs?
My thesis: you don’t care about any of that bullshit — you just want the best trading experience possible. You’ve become aware of the high FDV/low float meta, you see thru the infrastructure larp, you’re damn sure not interested in being anyone’s exit liquidity. Instead, you just want to trade with your friends, post a couple NSFW stickers in your trading chat when your positions pump, and share your loss porn when you get rugged for the 10th time today. I’ve had some of my funnest experiences trading memes — formed some of my closest friends through it. Fully zyn’d up, fully degen, screaming long live the Memecoin Supercycle at anyone fudding my bags. You shouldn’t have to have to get a computer science degree just to rotate capital. Seriously, imagine if your average equity trader had to learn what a bridge was in order to transfer their account from Robinhood to Fidelity.
Our Release Schedule
Idk if you caught on, but I’m not big into the fundraising process lol. Now that we have what we need, I’m excited to do what you’ve given us a mandate for: ship. The early bull is here, it’s time to start building a community of traders who love our products (and I damn sure don’t want to do my trading on someone else’s platform). We’re striving for a user experience that’s pretty different from what you have today, it’s best to release piece-by-piece so our traders can grow and adapt with us. As such, we’ll be breaking up our release into phases:
- Eliminate need for multiple swap UIs with Smart Order Routing: You’ll never have to switch between EVM UIs and Jupiter again — and it’s coming sooner than you might think. This is the base layer and last line of defense for the protocol. This aggregates every liquidity venue on supported chains and combines them with bridge routes to make a one-stop API that enables trading any asset on any chain. This will coincide with the release of a Telegram Bot, multiple UIs, and a host of other swap options. This won’t be constrained to just EVM or Solana.
- Increase the speed of your average cross-chain interaction and offer better exchange rates with intent-centric model: We’ll use intents to make cross-chain interactions as fast as possible, while allowing multiple venues for liquidity. A network of solvers will work to fulfill trades using a combination of other trades (CoW), passive JIT LP vaults, or their own sourced liquidity.
- Eliminate the need to ever interact with another blockchain again with Intensity: We’re building the ultimate home for intent-centric apps: Intensity (Intent City lol), an intent execution layer combined with a decentralized solver network that allows any developer to create a marketplace between their intents and off-chain solvers. This network will be able to broadcast orders to any other blockchain for fulfillment, meaning you could use Intensity as an app layer for Bitcoin, EVM, MoveVM, and so much more. This will be a hub of aggregation unlike any before. Perp aggregation between Cosmos chains like dYdX/Hyperliquid and EVM dexes is one I’m looking forward to most.
Our Strategy: the Reverse Mullet
No one likes to see how the sausage is made, but our earliest community members deserve an explanation on our GTM. Many in web3 speak of the wonders of the Barbell strategy: heavily degen marketing balanced with giga brain tech. Our strategy is similar, but quite frankly I don’t think you care that much about the intellectual circle jerk (look at vc coin performance vs. memes). Instead, we employ what I call the Reverse Mullet: party in the front, business in the back.
You will hardly hear about Shogun’s intent-centric model, our chain abstraction tooling, or any of the other innovative tech we’re working on. Instead, we will emphasize how you benefit from our tech. Of course our documentation will be available for any inquisitive gunslingers who want to know how the protocol works, but tech should never be our focal point for marketing.
Let me give you an example: “Chain abstraction” is the kind of term that could only be born out of the Cosmos ecosystem. Think about how bad that marketing is. We’re an industry built on blockchains — it’s our core product. But our core product is so bad that we have to abstract it away in order for people to use that. Or how about the folks pushing to rename Cosmos to the “IBC network”. I laughed as I read that on my TCP/IP Browser.
Let me throw down the gauntlet. There is a vastly better term for chain abstraction: Shogun.
Conclusion
I didn’t necessarily intend to write this post, but my brolic statements didn’t make it into The Block article lol. I’ll cap it off with our commitment to you: everyday our mission is to bring you the trading experience you want, the data points you need, the features you crave. We’re not here to judge you or write a think piece on how our devs know more about the morality of blockchains than the average trader. We work for you, not the other way around.
So here’s to the traders. The degens. The gunslingers. The ones who scream the [insert community term] stays on. The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of high FDV/low float trash. And they have no respect for this status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote tweet them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They get Donald Trump to mention Jeo Boden on national TV.
They explore dex screener. They create memes on pump.fun. They inspire white boys to enjoy their summers. They push the human race forward.
We make tools for these kinds of people. While some see them as degens, we see gigabrains.
Because the gunslingers who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
It’s time for bad ux to die. We’re building you the GUN.
ohio.
