I sat down with kassandra.eth, co-founder of Arrakis Finance, to discuss his journey from self-taught programmer to DeFi builder. Our conversation explored his early fascination with cryptography, the evolution of Arrakis, and their vision for the future of on-chain liquidity management with Uniswap v4.

What first drew you into crypto?
My journey began around 2017 with Bitcoin and Ethereum. At the time, I was teaching myself computer science from my living room, learning through public forums and debugging Python errors. What really captivated me about crypto was how it extended the same open-source ethos into something broader – a system that nobody could control, yet anyone could learn about and contribute to with enough interest and determination.

My first project was actually writing a command-line tool to encode Bitcoin transactions into hex. I built everything by hand except for the ECDSA signature component. I was deeply fascinated by cryptography, wanting to understand how elliptic curve digital signatures worked and if I could build them myself. This led me to work on various cryptography-focused projects before fully diving into DeFi.

How did you transition into working on DeFi full-time?
The real turning point came during DeFi Summer. I had been doing cryptography research and writing smart contracts as side projects, but seeing actual users interacting with DeFi applications made me realize I wanted to work on something directly user-facing. I specifically sought out smart contract work, which led me to join Gelato as one of their early hires.

At Gelato, I worked on automation for smart contract systems. When Uniswap v3 was about to launch, we saw an opportunity to use Gelato's automation capabilities to help with the new concentrated liquidity features. This project, initially called G-UNI, eventually evolved into what became Arrakis.

Can you tell us about the evolution from G-UNI to Arrakis?
What started as a showcase project within Gelato gained immediate traction when Uniswap v3 launched. Teams wanted to provide liquidity on v3 but found it more complex than v2. We became this small team within Gelato focused on helping people navigate Uniswap v3 liquidity in various ways. After about a year, it became clear that this project had grown beyond its original scope, and with the blessing of the Gelato DAO, we spun out as Arrakis.

What is Arrakis's core mission?
Our mission is to help projects, token issuers, and anyone with on-chain tokens create deeply liquid markets. This has become increasingly complex as the ecosystem has evolved. In the early days of Uniswap v2, you simply placed tokens in a pool on Ethereum mainnet. Now you have multiple chains, multiple DEXs with different properties, and various ways to provide liquidity. We help navigate this complexity and optimize liquidity provision across this diverse landscape.

What excites you about Uniswap v4?
What's fascinating about v4 is its expressibility through hooks. The question becomes not "what could be a v4 hook?" but rather "what couldn't be a v4 hook?"

The singleton architecture creates powerful network effects that could make it beneficial to build various applications as hooks, even if they're not traditionally DEX-related.

I'm particularly excited about seeing hooks move from theoretical potential to practical implementation. The real excitement now is watching hooks serve actual use cases in production and generate meaningful volume. For instance, proprietary market makers could potentially implement their RFQ (Request for Quote) systems as v4 hooks, benefiting from the singleton's unified accounting while maintaining their proprietary strategies.

What's next for Arrakis?
We're rolling out a new version of Arrakis Pro across multiple chains. This isn't just about supporting more venues – it's about creating a modular system where users can transition between different types of vaults and DEXs seamlessly. We've rebuilt our core liquidity automation strategies from scratch, incorporating everything we've learned over the years about managing concentrated liquidity positions.

This new version is perfect for teams launching new tokens, as well as existing projects looking to improve their on-chain liquidity, whether on Ethereum mainnet or new chains. We've taken our learnings from years of experience and created something that we believe will significantly improve how projects manage their liquidity.

How has the Uniswap Foundation supported your journey?
The Foundation has been instrumental in our growth. We received an early grant during the early days that was crucial for legitimizing our work and allowing us to continue development. We've also collaborated on joint events and received support for community initiatives, such as the Hook-a-thon at EthCC 2022, where we worked with Devin and the team to help developers understand and build with v4 hooks.

Note: The views expressed herein may not reflect the views of the Uniswap Foundation. This interview is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or professional advice.