Bitcoin Pizza Day is coming up and we’re there for it.

This week’s Midweek with Max kicked off with a visit from Rohit at Raga Finance, who walked us through how Raga is using Hemi to build automated looping strategies that boost DeFi yields. Instead of manually managing deposits and leverage, users can now deploy into vaults that auto-optimize returns across platforms like Spectra and LayerBank. According to Rohit, the strategy can take an average 5–6% base yield and push it to 7–8%, depending on appetite and number of loops. No need to hold base assets either — deposit what you’ve got, and the platform handles swaps and integrations under the hood.

When asked why they chose Hemi, Rohit pointed to Bitcoin liquidity. “There’s a lot of BTC in the market and not enough DeFi platforms actually making use of it,” he said. “Hemi stood out by doing the hard work to enable native Bitcoin use with deep liquidity and cross-chain functionality.” Raga’s vaults will soon be live, with simulations already available. Early whitelist users will get first access.

From there, Max took over with the founder update, outlining a packed schedule of protocol improvements and ecosystem moves. Highlights included:

• Final testing of the Pectra upgrade, activating new L2 features;
• An upcoming third-party RPC provider, improving stability and choice for wallet and dApp users;
• Refactors for core infra components like Popminer, BFG, and TBC to allow standalone operation;
• New visibility tools for mempool data and profitability metrics;
• The upcoming BitVM whitepaper, detailing how Hemi uses Bitcoin-aware virtual machines for secure tunneling and smart contract execution;
• Final touches on tokenomics and TGE, still marked with the highly scientific label of “very soon.”

Phil and Rick dropped marketing updates next, including HEMI’s sponsorship of Bitcoin Pizza Day in New York, participation in Bitcoin 2025 in Vegas, and upcoming presence at Permissionless in June. The team also teased a full appearance on the “Teach Me DeFi” podcast and a few unannounced partnerships coming down the pipe.

The Q&A section — which spiraled into full comedy at times — covered user verification, the role of centralized exchanges, native swapping support (it’s going through third-party DEXs for now), the Hemithic NFT role (coming, but cosmetic), and how token rewards will work post-TGE.

Max also tackled the classic question: “Who’s Hemi’s biggest rival?” The short answer: no one else is doing this exact thing. There are other L2s, other Bitcoin wrappers, other DeFi platforms. But Hemi sits in the space between Bitcoin and Ethereum, combining programmability with native Bitcoin security. The only thing that could slow it down? A trillion-dollar tech company building a blockchain from scratch. But even then, “speed to market and developer traction” gives Hemi the edge, Max said.

And finally, yes, the chat broke into absolute chaos when someone tried to ask about centralized exchange (CEX) incentives without giggling.

The real world meetups are coming fast. If you’re in NYC for Pizza Day, reach out. And stay tuned for token updates, protocol upgrades, and more vault integrations — soon, very soon, or possibly ultra soon.