# BaseLayer S2 Ep 4: Raymond Dong (Co-Founder, @Avantis)

- Channel: [Base](https://streameth.org/base)
- Date: 2026-06-09
- Duration: 03:28
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-oE7rkslVmE4
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE7rkslVmE4

## Description

In episode 4 of BaseLayer S2, we meet Ray, co-founder of Avantis, the universal leverage layer on Base.

From learning drive and hard work from his parents to falling in love with building through Legos as a kid, Ray's path has always pointed to one thing: build. That instinct carried him through three careers at McKinsey, the State Department, and investment firms. When his smartest friends in finance started quietly leaving for crypto, he followed.

Ray breaks down why Avantis was the first perps DEX the Base ecosystem fund ever backed, how the team is reinventing perps with mobile-first design, livestreamed eSports-style competitions, and agentic trading, and why the best advice for any founder is to ship early, test the market, and ask for help shamelessly.

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Avantis: https://www.youtube.com/@UCbJbJmMzjW-a4wr3bcfhiGQ 
Try Avantis: https://www.avantisfi.com/
Follow Raymond: https://x.com/raymdong
Follow Avantis: https://x.com/avantisfi
Follow Base: https://x.com/base