Odyssey - A New Course in Building apps

The opportunity to build has never been greater.

Today, we embark on a new journey - Odyssey. This initiative represents our commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in technology, focusing on rapid innovation and product development. In this post, we’ll share our vision, theses, and approach to building in this dynamic landscape.

What is Odyssey?

Odyssey is our framework for building at the intersection of AI & crypto. We’re creating products in public, using AI tools to accelerate our process, and sharing insights as we go. This manifests in three key outputs:

1. products shipped rapidly
2. a podcast documenting our journey and key learnings
3. a community of like-minded builders.

Odyssey represents both our methodology and the journey itself—a practical approach to building better and faster in today’s landscape.

What are our underlying theses on which sectors to build in, and what is our framework and approach to shipping products faster and better than larger and heavily funded teams?

Our Theses and Their Implications

1. The bull market is not over.

We consider it more likely than not that the true mania and excitement are yet to come. May prices peak in Q4 ´25 or Q1 ´26, we strongly believe that it is still worthwhile building consumer-focused applications and tooling. We have not seen the retail influx fueled by enthusiasm and speculation that will ultimately accompany us to the next wave of adoption and temporary peak.

The current market conditions present a unique opportunity for builders. While institutional adoption has grown significantly, the true retail wave - characterized by widespread enthusiasm and speculative interest - remains on the horizon. This creates a perfect environment for building products that will serve both current needs and future demand.

2. The era of L1 premia is over.

For the longest time, market participants have focused on chains and gas currencies. Due to progress in transaction throughput and UX, underlying chains have become commoditized and apps had to differentiate themselves to capture value. Therefore, community excitement, loyalty, and monetization will increasingly shift up to the application layer.

This shift represents a fundamental change in how value is created and captured in the ecosystem. As infrastructure becomes more robust and standardized, the focus moves to creating compelling user experiences and solving real-world problems. The winners of this cycle will be those who can build applications that resonate with users and create sustainable value.

3. AI enables us to research theses and build MVPs faster than ever before.

Small and agile teams building apps have an advantage over well-funded, large, but slower-moving teams. Tools like Cursor, Claude, Grok, and ChatGPT allow us to skip wasted resources on overhead and lever engineers´ code output by an order of magnitude. Consequently, we can have simple prototypes ready within days of validating a thesis.

The rapid advancement of AI tools has fundamentally changed the development landscape. What previously required large teams and months of development can now be accomplished by small, focused groups in weeks. This democratization of development capabilities allows us to iterate quickly, test hypotheses, and pivot when necessary - all while maintaining high standards of quality and security.

4. The only three established use cases of crypto are (I) Bitcoin as a system hedge, (II) stablecoins for permissionless fiat transfer across geographies, and (III) speculation infrastructure for open and unfiltered markets.

The largest national economy on planet Earth has officially recognized Bitcoin. Large TradFi institutions, multi-billion-$ FinTechs, and major VCs are unison bullish stablecoins. Speculation infrastructure is more dependent on economic cyclicality and liquidity, yet it will prevail and grow in the mid-to-long term. The stablecoin sector is likely to dominate this cycle in absolute ecosystem growth.

These established use cases provide a solid foundation for innovation. While we remain open to exploring new applications, we focus our efforts on areas where we can build upon these proven foundations, creating products that enhance and extend their capabilities.

5. Builders have to be more iterative and agile than before due to faster trend dynamics and sentiment shifts.

Unless you are building in an established sector, it has become very challenging to simply build a product and push it to market without being hyper-aware of changes in user demands. The lifespan of mini-cycles has decreased and mostly focused on only one or two sub-sectors.

This reality requires a new approach to product development - one that emphasizes rapid iteration, continuous feedback, and the ability to pivot quickly when market conditions change. Success in this environment depends on our ability to stay attuned to market signals and user needs while maintaining the flexibility to adapt our strategies accordingly.

The Odyssey Philosophy

Our approach to building centers around the following core principles:

1. Quick time-to-value.

We rather ship an imperfect MVP than tweak product details for months while not even having demand validation. This philosophy stems from our belief that real user feedback is more valuable than theoretical perfection. By getting products into users’ hands quickly, we can learn, iterate, and improve based on actual usage patterns and feedback.

2. Be hyper-aware of industry trends and time preferences.

If a product does not get our expected traction, we will move on and adapt to changing user demands. Similarly, we double down on a project once we see the potential for sustained growth and long-term viability for the project´s sector.

This approach requires constant market awareness and the ability to make difficult decisions quickly. We maintain a portfolio mindset, recognizing that not every project will succeed, but each provides valuable lessons that inform our future efforts.

3. AI-Enabled

We strongly believe in the technical advancements enabled by cutting-edge AI models and their utilization in business and building processes. Our team actively explores and integrates AI tools across our development pipeline, from research and ideation to implementation and testing.

4. Build in public.

Contemporary products need to quickly adapt to changing trends and demands. There is no better way to stay on top of developments than by proactively interacting with community members and publicly sharing our building process.

We believe in transparency and open communication. By documenting our journey, we not only create a valuable resource for others but also hold ourselves accountable to our principles and goals.

Become Part of the Journey

• Follow Binary on X
• Follow Odyssey on X
• Listen to us on Spotify
• Listen to us on Apple
• Join our Community on Telegram

Always keep building