Bankless · Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Variational's CEO, Lucas Schuermann, explains that unlike exchanges like Hyperliquid, Variational operates as a broker, taking the other side of trades and hedging against aggregated global liquidity from both crypto and traditional finance (TradFi). This model allows for features like zero-fee trading, hundreds of listings, and superior execution for Real World Assets (RWAs) by directly accessing TradFi liquidity pools instead of relying on thin on-chain order books.
“The biggest difference between variational and other platforms is we're a broker-like model, not an exchange. We don't have order books on our platform. We take the other side of the trade and hedge it against aggregated global liquidity.”
“So our liquidity for our RWA listings is proximal to, or we like to call it is equal to, on ChadFi on chain.”
“When you trade on variational, variational system takes the other side of the trade. The user is always what we call then the taker and our system is what we call the maker.”