BaseLayer S2 Ep 1: Jai Prasad (Co-Founder, Definitive Finance)

It was just for the vibes back then. I moved to Santiago, Chile in my early 20s. I didn't [music] speak a single word of Spanish. Lot of empanadas and reggaeton. That's where my affinity for Bad Bunny comes from.

My name is Jay Prasad. I'm the co-founder of Definitive Finance. [music] I used to like to break things down instead of build them. So, give me a car, I would open the engine. That's actually where I get a lot of curiosity from.

I just want to understand how the world, how people, how cultures all work from first principles. I grew up in India, 1.4 billion people. The city I grew up in, Mumbai, a city of 20 million people where you realize that hard work is not enough because even if you work hard, you might not have access to the same financial services. A bank might not give you a loan just because where you were born or, you know, who your parents were.

I think crypto provides this global, permissionless, programmable way for anyone to access financial services. Definitive is a place where you can access these coins and trade these coins [music] with the same tooling and infrastructure that a large hedge fund can access. So, we democratize access to crypto trading for everyone. The DNA of [music] our team is trading. We trade options, we trade prediction markets, we trade Pokémon cards.

That's basically our hobby. So, we really understand what users want. More and more assets are coming on chain thanks to Base.

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There's thousands of crypto assets launched every day. Just during this interview, someone probably launched a crypto coin. Prediction market assets, options, assets we can't even imagine are going to come on chain. [music] We wanted to play long-term games with long-term builders, and I think that's where Base really stands out. Felt like Base was really long-term aligned and they really wanted to bring the world on chain.

This was not just marketing buzz. I'm on year eight in my crypto journey. It's fun when the price goes up, but goes down is actually the best time to build. Change and innovation happens in bear markets. So, don't get discouraged.

[music] Trust that instinct, trust the guiding principle, and keep keep fighting and keep building. Hi, I'm Jay. I'm the co-founder of Definitive, and I'm building on Base.

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