Dose of Alpha Episode #7: DEX vs Perps
The S&P 500 didn't tokenize. They didn't lend. They went straight to Hyperliquid — and made $2.5 million on a Monday.
In Episode 7 of Dose of Alpha, Eric Waisanen breaks down what he actually learned at the Digital Asset Summit in New York: TradFi isn't here to validate crypto. They're here to win. And they're playing a completely different game than anyone expected.
Eric and Bryan unpack the mechanics behind why institutions are skipping DEXs and lending markets entirely, what the Jelly attack reveals about the fragility underneath Hyperliquid's explosive growth, and why the rise of prop AMMs and synthetic liquidity is quietly recreating every exploit and edge case traditional finance spent decades learning the hard way.
This one gets spicy. They steelman perps, strawman DEXs, dig into auto-deleveraging, contagion risk (Terra Luna → Ethena → Tether), and make the case that onchain rate discovery isn't just a DeFi thesis anymore— it's the next global financial primitive.
🔑 Topics covered:
0:00 S&P 500 Skips DeFi and Goes Straight to Hyperliquid
3:11 Why Perps Beat Spot: The Strawman Debate
6:52 The Jelly Attack Explained (and the Mr. Humpy Parallel)
11:24 Auto-Deleveraging, Bad Debt, and How Hyperliquid Manages Risk
17:16 Prop AMMs, Synthetic Liquidity, and the New MEV
20:54 Contagion Risk: From Terra Luna to Ethena to Tether
23:37 TradFi Isn't Here to Validate You — They're Here to Win
27:41 When to Use Perps vs. Spot vs. Lending (Asset-by-Asset Breakdown)
34:11 Funding Rate Arbitrage and the $500K Data Gap Nobody's Filling
38:44 Onchain Rate Discovery Is the Future of Global Finance
🔗 AlphaGrowth: alphagrowth.io
📲 Follow Bryan: @bryancolligan
The AlphaGrowth team is excited to bring you real-time intel from the DeFi front lines, each week as we release new episodes. Stay tuned for more! And don't forget to comment and share your thoughts with us on YouTube, Spotify, X, Apple Podcasts. Bring RWAs onchain with AlphaGrowth in 2026: alphagrowth.io.
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