The Perpification of Everything | Kaledora Kiernan Linn (Ostium) at ETHConf

Sun, Aug 2, 2026, 12:00 AM

In this talk, Kaledora Kiernan Linn from Ostium discusses postmodern investing and the rise of what she terms perpification, the transformation of assets into perpetuals and the proliferation thereof. She frames the core macro thesis behind Ostium: macro news is the new reality TV. When they started the company a few years ago this was a contrarian view, but her conviction was that markets had entered a new macro paradigm. She argues the first generation of consumer trading applications, in the interim period between the 2008 great financial crisis and COVID in 2020, was a historical anomaly defined by three things: extremely low, zero-bound interest rates, extremely low inflation, and little geopolitical uncertainty. COVID broke that mold and thrust markets into the opposite: persistently higher and more unpredictable rate policy (swinging from three anticipated cuts to expected hikes), inflation that was transitory then came back, and pervasive geopolitical uncertainty. Kaledora argues this ushers in a new generation of traders, illustrated by loud, active Twitter accounts like one that made over $4 million trading oil during the Strait of Hormuz closure and another that single-shotted large gold and oil positions for over half a million dollars of P&L in under a day. She calls the underlying trend Revenge of the Hyper Online (a nod to Revenge of the Nerds), arguing that time spent from a young age in chats, trading groups, and subreddits is unexpectedly value-creative, honing two contrarian skills: identifying reflexive viral loops (sensing what the herd will focus on, honed in the meme coin trenches) and a theory of mind for unpredictable characters (intuiting what an erratic geopolitical actor might do, much like anticipating a meme coin dev). She explains what this means for the market: asset-class-specific trading is collapsing, and where the prior mobile-first generation siloed people into FX, stock, or crypto traders, the trader of today moves seamlessly between gold, Bitcoin, oil, Nvidia, and the next SpaceX IPO, agnostic to asset class and chasing momentum. This drives migration to a single platform and a single instrument, the perpetual, which turns any asset into a cash-settled, risk-modulated instrument that never expires, the perfect native tool for this style. She closes noting Ostium and others have grown tremendously, and that this new class of cross-asset macro trader has elevated perps from a niche crypto instrument into one the broader finance world now takes seriously. 00:00 Introduction 00:07 Postmodern Investing and Perpification 00:37 Why We Started the Company 00:47 Macro News Is the New Reality TV 00:58 The New Macro Paradigm 01:27 The Three Anomalies of the Old World 01:48 How COVID Broke the Mold 02:10 Higher Rates, Inflation, and Geopolitical Uncertainty 02:30 A New Generation of Traders 02:37 The Oil Trader Who Made $4 Million 02:56 Single-Shotting Gold and Oil for Half a Million 03:23 Revenge of the Hyper Online 04:02 Skill One: Identifying Reflexive Viral Loops 04:28 Skill Two: A Theory of Mind for Unpredictable Characters 05:21 The Thanksgiving Markets Meme 05:34 Why Asset-Class-Specific Trading Is Collapsing 05:49 The Siloed First Generation of Trading Apps 06:11 The Trader Who Moves Seamlessly Between Assets 06:38 The Rise of a Single Instrument and Platform 07:10 Migrating to One Platform Across Asset Classes 07:35 Why People Just Want to Long or Short Anything 08:00 What Perpification Really Means 08:25 Why the Market Has Validated Perps 08:56 The New Archetype of Cross-Asset Macro Trader 09:27 Closing _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ *ETHConf 2026* ETHConf is a 3 day event for founders, industry leaders, and builders who are excited about the possibilities of building on top of Ethereum. Connect with 2,000+ top innovators in crypto, finance, technology, and policy at our inaugural three-day event packed with showcases, demos, partnerships, and conversations shaping the future of the global economy. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ *Follow ETHConf* X: https://x.com/ethconf Website: https://ethconf.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🎟️ Get your early bird tickets for ETHConf 2027: https://ethconf.com/2027#tickets 🎤 View the full ETHConf 2026 Speaker Schedule: https://ethconf.com/schedule _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _