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A perpetual futures marketplace asked Carmen Li to become the market maker for her own index, and could not believe the question was serious.

Li, CEO of Silicon Data and Compute Exchange, sits down with Steven Ehrlich to explain why that request exposes a conflict of interest crypto has normalized. A former DRW options trader and Bloomberg data executive, she is building the price discovery layer for compute, the commodity she argues will soon be the largest on earth.

The conversation traces how you index a market where no two GPUs are alike, why a $600 billion buildout implies a derivatives market between $6 trillion and $30 trillion, what launching cash-settled futures on the CME takes, and why 200 data sources make manipulation harder than transaction-only feeds.

They also weigh stablecoin payments and miners pivoting to AI. As GPU futures move onshore and offshore perp venues circle her benchmark, the question becomes who gets to set the price.

Host:

• • Steven Ehrlich – Head of Research, SharpLink & Host of Bits + Bips: The Interview

Guest:

• • Carmen Li – CEO of Silicon Data and Compute Exchange