Today's @_TalkingTokens goes inside the mind of @Mert He returns to the pod to discuss @Solana's evolution, how he shifted his perspective to scale @Helius, his hot takes on the industry and more. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 – Intro 01:01 – Breakpoint setup and intro to Mert and his Crypto Twitter identity 01:59 – The end game of crypto as global permissionless markets accessible from anywhere 02:33 – Solana as a sci-fi computer and the need for encrypted money alongside open markets 03:28 – What Helius actually is and why making the chain legible was the first step 04:23 – Building VPCs, indexing, data retrieval and the bottom up infra Solana needed 05:11 – The Helius barbell: low latency data for HFT firms and consumer facing block explorers 06:08 – Orb as a first principles block explorer for internet capital markets 06:34 – How transparency tools ironically highlight the need for user level privacy 07:56 – Democratizing chain analysis and revealing what governments and analytics firms already know 08:52 – Historical data breakthrough enabling second level search for all user activity 11:45 – Biggest lessons from building Helius and why startups must aim for exponential growth 15:05 – The Trump memecoin moment and realizing Helius needed to think bigger 16:33 – Bringing market makers onto Solana and building new categories beyond existing apps 17:33 – Shaking off the memecoin chain narrative as stocks, commodities and L1s list on Solana 18:27 – Tokenized stocks, commodities, and why Solana hosts every major asset class 20:36 – His relationship with Solana Foundation and how Solana matured culturally and organizationally 23:04 – Becoming a cultural face of Solana and how authenticity built his X following 27:50 – How he filters tweets post growth and when he chooses not to punch down 30:45 – Rapid fire questions on trends, narratives and more 36:26 – Final advice: learn to read, write and think independently without analogies Full episode on X: