As more people turn to digital platforms to manage their finances, non-traditional approaches like decentralized finance (DeFi) applications are gradually gaining popularity. What started as a niche technology and is gaining more ground every day, DeFi offers users a way to exchange and invest their money without the need for traditional institutions like banks, removing the middleman and allowing users more oversight and ownership over their assets. This represents a larger movement toward a decentralized internet, a concept known as Web3.
This paradigm shift is being led by technical experts like Lorimer Jenkins, an entrepreneur who is behind several Arweave projects — Arweave being a network that allows users to store and access their data permanently. Looking to make this platform more accessible for would-be investors, Jenkins is launching LiquidOps, a protocol that enables users to lend their assets on the network and earn passive income over time.
Read more to learn about Jenkins’ journey, his experience with the Arweave ecosystem, and how LiquidOps offers a new approach to decentralized finance.
A growing interest in Web3
Jenkins got his start as an intern at a prominent venture capital firm. However, he soon discovered that his passion lay on the other side of the fence — rather than making investments in emerging tech, he decided he wanted to be the one building these projects. “The more I learned about the projects the company was supporting,” he reflects, “I quickly realized that I wanted to be on the creating and building side rather than just investing.”
This motivated Jenkins to teach himself how to code in his free time, hoping to create the next big Web3 project. Web3 — a new version of the internet that’s decentralized, built on blockchain technology, and owned by the users rather than a centralized authority.
In the realm of finance, this allows users to safely exchange currencies on blockchain networks without relying on centralized intermediaries like banks or brokerages. This model offers a more transparent and democratic ecosystem, where users alone are in charge and in ownership of their financial transactions. It’s become an appealing option for those looking to move beyond traditional banking options, fueling the rise of decentralized finance platforms that allow users to invest in a wide range of digital assets.
Inspired by the potential of Web3 and DeFi, Jenkins set out to develop his own applications.
Building on Arweave
Instead of opting for more widely known networks like Ethereum or Bitcoin, Jenkins chose to specialize in a platform known as Arweave, which provides permanent data storage in exchange for a one-time payment. This allows users to store large amounts of information on a permanent, serverless platform, remaining untouched by third parties — an essential feature for applications that work with reliable historical databases.
Jenkins’ involvement with Arweave began when he became one of the first Fellows of Community Labs, a tech incubator for Arweave-related projects. There, he was deeply inspired by the network's culture. “The Arweave ecosystem is fierce,” he says. “Builders are ruthlessly focused on creating meaningful and lasting projects, rather than spending months on developing flashy visuals and front-end designs.”
During his time at Community Labs, Jenkins’ primary goal was to develop tools that would solve various problems faced by people trying to learn about and access Web3. This led to the creation of his first project, Othent, an authentication tool that lets people log into Arweave with social accounts like Google, LinkedIn, or Discord — making Arweave more accessible to everyday users by simplifying the transition from traditional (Web2) accounts to decentralized (Web3) ones.
The next step was to make Web3 not only accessible to newcomers but also profitable. This paved the way for Jenkins’ next project, LiquidOps.
The creation of LiquidOps
Shortly after launching Othent, Jenkins teamed up with Marton Lederer, founder of the Arweave-based digital wallet ArConnect, to develop a solution that could tap into Arweave’s growing liquidity. “Marton and I noticed that there was a lot of unused capital on the network,” Jenkins notes, “and we wanted to create a way to put it to work.”
Together, they developed LiquidOps, a lending-and-borrowing protocol that allows users to earn interest on $AR and $AO — Arweave’s native tokens that are used to cover data uploading fees (also known as “gas fees”). Through LiquidOps, lenders can deposit their assets into a shared pool, which borrowers can access after paying an established collateral. Then, borrowers pay a recurring fee until the original loan is paid back in full, thereby providing lenders with a steady stream of passive income.
While LiquidOps has yet to officially launch, it’s already garnered significant attraction in the DeFi space. In a pre-seed funding round, the platform raised $325,000, and more than 2,500 users are currently on the official waitlist — representing $50 million in liquidity when it launches to the general public.
Making DeFi more accessible
As he prepares for the official launch of LiquidOps, Jenkins remains connected to the Arweave community and continues to support promising projects through incubators like Community Labs and AO Ventures. For example, he was recently a judge at AO Ventures’ Demo Day, where he helped determine which participants were ready to pitch their startups to potential investors. He also recorded a series of technical workshops to guide developers on how to build applications on Arweave.
Lorimer Jenkins’ ongoing contributions to Arweave are helping to turn the network into a major player within the Web3 space, and his latest project, LiquidOps, is aiming to make DeFi both accessible and profitable for everyday users. To stay updated on Jenkins’ latest projects and developments, follow him on X.
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