Variational has stayed under the radar for most, and there’s a huge opportunity here because so little has been farmed so far. Early movers will likely capture the biggest upside.
TL;DR• 0 trading fees (forever), no maker/taker fee• RFQ model and in-house Omni Liquidity Provider (OLP) instead of a public orderbook.• Loss refunds & spread discounts funded by OLP.• Massive listing breadth on Arbitrum, onboarding assets fast.• Based team: ex-Qu Capital, ex-Genesis MM desk, real infra builders (Ed Yu / Lucas Schuermann).
Why it’s differentOn Hyperliquid (orderbook):• Small orders are fine.• Large orders = you eat slippage walking the book + taker fees.
On Omni (RFQ):• You request a block quote.• OLP hedges across CEX/OTC venues in bulk.• No extra fees – you just trade the quoted spread
Example: $1M BTC perp.• On HL: taker fee ~2.5 bps = $25k, plus ~$10–20k slippage if depth is thin.• On Omni: $0 fee, and OLP usually quotes <$20k total spread.
Roughly 50% cheaper at size.
Other edges• Loss refunds: close a losing trade? You’ve got a shot at getting that loss refunded in USDC.• Spread revenue recycled to users: discounts, refunds, rewards > less value leakage vs HL/Lighter.• Listings: Omni spins up new markets quickly; OLP can hedge externally so long-tail assets are possible.• Early beta = underfarmed: no points announced yet, but retro rewards are highly likely (little bird told it is very soon).
About the founders (based team)• Ed Yu: ex-Genesis Head of MM desk (2021, biggest crypto MM).• Lucas Schuermann: ex-Genesis VP Engineering, built OTC infra.• Both sold Qu Capital to Genesis in 2019.• Known for posting sharp takes & being transparently degen on X → example “based” post.
Why act now• Farming HL/Lighter early paid multiples more than later.• Omni is in closed beta with incentives already live (refunds, 0 fees).• The bigger your size, the bigger your edge compared to other perp DEXes.
If you want the combo of 0 fees, block-size fills, loss refunds, and a proven team, Omni / Variational is the perp DEX to hedge your other farms at.Need an acces code to enter, can ask in their discord #ref channel or use mine: OMNIAHBEVPVUhttps://omni.variational.io?ref=OMNIAHBEVPVU