The pricing layer for compute
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Joined February 2024
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Primis Protocol retweeted
// exciting start to my day regarding @primisprotocol
had a great call with a potential major compute data provider.
one thing became very clear: if we want to give builders predictable compute pricing, we must find a solution to how we hedge.
they’re introducing us to one of their partners to explore what the right risk-transfer infra could look like for our use case, including whether custom hedging instruments could make sense for primis.
still early, but a very exciting conversation. feel like an explorer reaching lands that no one ever been to before.
primis mode
Primis Protocol retweeted
// @primisprotocol update :
tbh we’re making good progress, just not as fast as i’d like.
the hardest part is giving builders prices they can actually plan around.
once primis gives you a workload quote, we carry the risk if the underlying market moves.
that’s why we’re investing so much into better pricing models, richer market data, and (hopefully soon) access to infras like @OrnnExchange to improve how we price and manage that exposure.
reliable quotes are hard. and we will make them the standard.
primis mode
Primis Protocol retweeted
this is very much @primisprotocol coded @blknoiz06.
we’re building onchain compute market infrastructure that lets builders access predictable rates, reserve capacity, and run workloads without directly eating every spike in gpu pricing.
primis mode.
Primis Protocol retweeted
update //
appreciate all the feedback lately: product, comms, and token.
i’ll be honest: our communication with the community over the past month should have been better.
that’s on me.
i didn’t want to keep posting empty “soon” updates, but i also know silence creates uncertainty. going forward, i’ll be more consistent about sharing where we are and what we’re learning.
on product:
closed beta has been extremely valuable.
the teams using @primisprotocol right now are helping us catch edge cases, improve flows, and tighten the system before we open the gates more widely.
open beta is getting closer, and i’m very excited to have all of you onboarded.
on token:
our view has not changed. primis should align token holders, product, and company.
we’re always thinking deeply about how the token connects to the growth of the ecosystem over time, but the priority today is very clear:
build the product.
because the best thing we can do for long-term alignment is create something real that builders actually use.
and from now on,
less sorrys.
more shipping.
primis mode.
Primis Protocol retweeted
amazing post @0xfishylosopher, strongly aligned with our @primisprotocol thesis.
compute is too nonfungible for one generic market to solve everything.
builders need workload-specific rates:
gpu type, region, window, reliability, and usage profile.
then the layer behind that can manage exposure across providers, otc capacity, benchmarks, and futures.
that’s primis:
turn messy compute markets into rates builders can actually run against.
Lots of buzz recently on compute capital markets. But what might these markets actually look like? A few thoughts on its market structure from first principles:
> First, almost everyone agrees that compute has a nonfungibility quality. It behaves closer to electricity (temporal, nonfungible) than corn, oil, and gold.
> This nonfungibility creates several downstream corollaries:
(1) Reservations/capacity forwards are almost always bilateral OTC trades on particular SKUs and params (I want X hours of H200s in us-east-1 running Y model at 12pm on 8/1/2026)
(2) There is no transparent "one-size-fits-all" pricing model for "generic H200s" like there is for corn/oil/gold, hence no proper futures market used for hedging
(3) Most of the teams building in the space (eg. Silicon Data, Ornn, Compute Desk) are focusing on "standardization" indices/benchmarks, in preparation to create a liquid futures market.
> The short-side of compute markets fundamentally comes from neoclouds (Coreweave, Nebius, Lambda) and indepedent data centers (people with GPUs), while the long-side of compute markets comes from inference dev platforms (Fireworks, Modal, Baseten) and the agentic applayer (Cursor, Perplexity, Suno, Rime) that do not run datacenter fleets
> But these principals will never directly trade on general compute exchanges (eg. an H200 basket) because they require specific SKUs. Instead, they'll make their reservations/capacity forwards for specific SKUs with OTC dealers.
> These dealers in turn can "hedge" particular SKUs with exposure to the underlying generalized basket exchanges. So the folks actually using compute futures exchanges are going to be MMs/OTC desks/compute dealers on both sides. This creates an endgame market structure like below:
Primis Protocol retweeted
this is a reminder that builders are exposed to more than just model quality and token pricing.
they’re exposed to provider risk, jurisdiction risk, and policy risk too.
the future won’t be built on a single model or a single provider.
it will require routing, optionality, and infrastructure that can adapt when parts of the stack become unavailable overnight.
primis mode
The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.
The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance.
Access to all other Claude models is not affected.
We apologize for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible.
Read our full statement: anthropic.com/news/fable-myt…
Primis Protocol retweeted
we’ve just sent 150 invites to people on the waitlist.
not a drill. not a hack.
we prioritized based on:
how long you’ve been on the waitlist. whether you signed up with a company email.
this is the final onboarding wave before open beta.
the goal is simple:
test everything under multi-team usage before opening the doors to everyone.
can you feel it coming?
primis mode.
Primis Protocol retweeted
we’re almost done. which means open beta is around the corner.
primis mode
been a little quiet, not because nothing is happening but the opposite.
first the market has been moving exactly where we thought it would: gpu availability tightening, prices repricing overnight, compute futures appearing and builders realizing “access” is not enough.
the missing layer is becoming obvious. and that’s what we’ve been building with @primisprotocol.
our closed beta that has been running for months is already processing ~$100k/monthly. and allowed us to understand what needed to improve for scale. which is what we’ve been working on.
all this, to say open beta has never been closer as we estimate we’re 1 big sprint away from opening the gates.
primis mode
Primis Protocol retweeted
budgeting becoming a “huge issue” means compute cost is no longer hidden behind flat saas pricing and subsidies.
as usage becomes more agentic, costs become more variable, harder to forecast, and harder to absorb.
the next question for every team becomes:
what will this workload cost?
can we plan around it?
can we scale it without margin shock?
that’s why @primisprotocol is building the pricing layer for compute.
predictable compute economics are becoming mandatory.
@sama let’s chat ;)
Sam Altman said AI budgeting has recently become a "huge issue" for some companies, something that "never came up" earlier this year. bit.ly/4uxIGnv
Primis Protocol retweeted
been a little quiet, not because nothing is happening but the opposite.
first the market has been moving exactly where we thought it would: gpu availability tightening, prices repricing overnight, compute futures appearing and builders realizing “access” is not enough.
the missing layer is becoming obvious. and that’s what we’ve been building with @primisprotocol.
our closed beta that has been running for months is already processing ~$100k/monthly. and allowed us to understand what needed to improve for scale. which is what we’ve been working on.
all this, to say open beta has never been closer as we estimate we’re 1 big sprint away from opening the gates.
primis mode
Primis Protocol retweeted
when a few actors control hardware, memory, cloud capacity, and frontier APIs, builders get squeezed from both sides:
hardware becomes unaffordable,
API pricing rises,
and the market loses optionality.
open models and cheaper inference are the counter-force.
but the real unlock is the layer that can route across all of it:
frontier apis,
open models,
cloud gpus,
local / edge inference,
alternative providers.
that’s the @primisprotocol thesis.
not one model.
not one cloud.
not one hardware stack.
pricing + routing across fragmented compute so builders can access the best economics for each workload.
primis mode
So what Big Tech did in the USA is they bought up all the computer hardware needed for AI, including HBM (High Bandwidth Memory), driving prices up 400+%.
Nvidia, meanwhile, doubled the pricing on its medium-range GPU, the GeForce 5090, which now retails at near $5000.
What this did is it made local AI hardware unaffordable for the vast majority of American consumers who might have been interested in running local AI. Now, instead, they have to "rent" AI through Big Tech and pay the rising monthly access fees to access overpriced AI models offered by the same tech giants that bought up all the hardware.
Fortunately, China came along and released DeepSeek, Xaomi, Qwen, etc., with per-token costs absolutely SLASHED to a fraction of U.S. tech company tokens. (Literally costs only about 1-2% to use DeepSeek, compared to using Anthropic Opus.)
And at the same time, China is beginning to catch up on microchip fabrication and High Bandwidth Memory manufacturing, which will result in their products driving down prices for consumers sometime in 2027 (on the hardware).
So U.S. Big Tech companies tried to create a near-monopoly to enslave the American people, and China actually broke those shackles and gave American access to affordable cloud-based AI right now, with more affordable local AI inference hardware coming soon.
Go figure.
Primis Protocol retweeted
we’re here to stay with @primisprotocol. we know the compute market is competitive but we will compete, because as i said i’m a perseverant mfer that will outwork anyone.
primis mode
Primis Protocol retweeted
bar for bar what we’ve been saying @primisprotocol and we’re building the pricing layer for compute. the goal is simple: turn fragmented, volatile compute pricing into rates builders can actually plan around.
everyday more validation on our thesis.
primis mode.
Primis Protocol retweeted
holyyyyyy!!
@OpenAI @sama basically saying what the market is starting to realize:
access to compute is not enough.
builders need guaranteed capacity and predictable planning for critical workloads.
that’s the @primisprotocol thesis too. but as a neutral layer across fragmented providers, not inside one model ecosystem.
predictable compute is becoming the product.
primis mode.
Introducing OpenAI Guaranteed Capacity: a new offering that enables customers to guarantee long-term access to OpenAI compute.
We’ve made long-term investments in infrastructure, partnerships, and capacity planning to help customers scale reliably.
Now, Guaranteed Capacity helps customers plan ahead for critical workloads in a compute-constrained world.
openai.com/guaranteed-capaci…
Primis Protocol retweeted
had a great chat with dom @MCGlive about @primisprotocol and the future of compute
primis mode
Today on MCG: @khouuba | Building @primisprotocol
$PRIMIS is building the pricing layer for compute
@CMEGroup just validated the thesis by partnering with Silicon Data to launch the first compute futures market👇
00:03 - @DineroDom0 lays the foundation
03:46 - What is Primis?
07:04 - GPU prices skyrocketing
07:40 - Airline analogy
08:48 - Anthropics model
09:29 - Closed beta running a month, $100K monthly compute volume, 23% avg savings
10:27 - Khouba's background
14:00 - Ten providers integrated
17:24 - Targeting small and medium AI labs, not OpenAI or Anthropic
23:53 - Long compute thesis
24:50 - Eight teams in closed beta, each spending $10-15K monthly
25:39 - @xai , @AppliedInt , @rendernetwork , all names on the waitlist
33:25 - Silicon Data call on Thursday
39:50 - Two LOIs in progress from teams that saw the 30% spike protection
42:30 - Barriers of entry
47:10 - Open Beta ETA
43:44 - Funding
43:45 - 3rd place in the @BagsApp Hackathon
49:10 - Token talk
49:58 - 50% of profits flow back to token holders, 50% reinvested
56:24 - What's next
1:02:40 - Margin goals
1:03:00 - Wrap up + Takeaways
1:07:35 - TA
Primis Protocol retweeted
+400 in less than a day.
the latest news and spikes making people realize we need a pricing layer for compute more than ever.
primis mode
over 3500 teams and solo builders on the waitlist for the @primisprotocol beta.
they understand the vital need for predictable compute that allows them to plan and scale around.
some of the notable names found in the waitlist were from @xai @AppliedInt @rendernetwork and more…
primis mode
Primis Protocol retweeted
I’ll be chatting with the good people over at @MCGlive today at 12:30pm edt
primis mode
This Week on @MCGlive
Monday 5/18
12:30 - $PRIMIS @primisprotocol w/@khouuba (@BagsApp)
Tuesday 5/19
12:30 - $KAIO @KAIO_xyz w/@PinkuSurana
1:15 - @risedotrich w/@0xSahand
2:00 - $TCG @collectdotrip w/@cryptocharles__ @notsofast
Wednesday 5/20
12:30 - $CLUDE @cludeproject w/@sebbsssss
1:15 - $PERCOLATOR @PercolatorTrade w/@0xsquid_sol @dcc_crypto
Thursday 5/21
12:30 - $FDRY @unbrowse w/@lekt8_
1:15 - $ROUTER @SolrouterAI w/@Ghosthash1
Friday 5/22
11:30 - $MET @MeteoraAG DLMM Product Updates w/@0xmiir (@met_lparmy)
1:15 - $CLAW @clawpumptech w/@conejocapital
Primis Protocol retweeted
over 3500 teams and solo builders on the waitlist for the @primisprotocol beta.
they understand the vital need for predictable compute that allows them to plan and scale around.
some of the notable names found in the waitlist were from @xai @AppliedInt @rendernetwork and more…
primis mode
Primis Protocol retweeted
and this is exactly why @primisprotocol matters.
when h200 pricing can jump 29% overnight, the builder problem is no longer just getting access to gpus.
it’s getting access to compute at rates they can actually plan around.
shortages are bullish for whoever already owns supply, sure.
but the bigger missing layer is the one that turns fragmented, volatile compute into something usable for builders through pricing + routing.
that’s the thesis.
