QuickSwap Co-Founder Roc Zacharias Discloses Personal Background and Key Industry Wisdom in Tell-All April Interview with BrandTalks
A long-time entrepreneur, innovator, and evangelist in Web3, QuickSwap’s most vocal co-founder Roc Zacharias made his landmark digital appearance of 2025 in a major interview with BrandTalks. Going one-on-one with host Lilly Douse for 60 minutes, Zacharias pulled from his deep industry experience, deliberating on a number of key issues and pressing topics, including big news items involving Layer 2 scalability stack Polygon and its premier DEX, QuickSwap.
Speaking of his experience getting QuickSwap off the ground, Zacharias covered what it takes to have and maintain success on the gritty and competitive Web3 startup scene. Saving the best for last, he provided crucial advice to motivated entrepreneurs across the Web3 space, offering his own insights into how to get ahead and maintain great positioning from the very beginning.
QuickSwap: A Success Story Built on Belief
Today a primary Dex on the Polygon DeFi scene, QuickSwap took its first steps during the 2020 DeFi summer as a Uniswap fork dedicated to jumpstarting Layer 2 DeFi. QuickSwap had its hand on the pulse of the market, becoming the first Layer 2 DEX to nail a pair of powerful milestones: processing $1 billion in volume and amassing $1 million in Total Value Locked (TVL).
Looking back on QuickSwap’s wild growth trajectory which saw its token QUICK surge more than 200,000%, Zacharias credits the project’s success to its principles. In the prerogative of decentralization, QuickSwap denied VCs, while even Zacharias himself refused a token allocation – instead issuing 97% of QUICK tokens to the community.
Secondly, QuickSwap focused on pioneering innovation by evangelizing powerful technologies on the rise. Later termed by media and industry leads as the ”QuickSwap Effect,” Zacharias pushed new DeFi technologies into the Web3 limelight, including Gamma, and Steer Protocol’s ALM (automated liquidity management) solutions. As Zacharias explained: “This industry is always moving, so you have to be nimble. You have to be ready to change. It’s like any business, really – you have to be constantly adapting. But in crypto it moves faster and change is drastic.”
QuickSwap’s Quest Continues into Q2 2025
Now several years into QuickSwap’s journey, Roc and his team still haven’t taken their feet off the gas pedal. For one, QuickSwap just recently became Web3’s very first deflationary DEX following the implementation of tokenomic modifications approved by the QuickSwap DAO through a major community vote.
Meanwhile, QuickSwap is preparing to integrate yet another major DeFi innovation in StratEx, a DeFi strategy marketplace that allows users to deposit capital in vaults and begin earning prime yields while maintaining self-custody. If Roc has his way, QuickSwap will be driving innovation until DeFi reaches mass market adoption.
Delivering Prescient Advice at a Key Moment in the Market
Of course, Zacharias was not about to part ways with BrandTalks without giving a few words of encouragement to gritty entrepreneurs just starting to find their way in Web3. His first command: go to conferences to break in and get to know people in person. Zacharias emphasized “those relationships can last.”
Secondly, Roc pulled from the words of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, telling Web3 startups to aim to be missionaries, not mercenaries. In other words, Roc believes in living by principles rather than focusing on profits.
As a believer embodying the missionary mindset at QuickSwap, Roc has not sold a single token. His focus has instead remained on building social capital by growing his network. Nonetheless, Roc lamented that allowing VC funding in the door for QuickSwap might have allowed the project to “build bigger, and even badder things.”
Ultimately, Roc named balance as the key, opening up space in a Web3 startup for both missionaries focused on principles and mercenaries that are more aggressive about making money, selling products, and capitalizing on market opportunities.
A Man in Demand: Roc Zacharias in 2025
With a wealth of Web3 experience behind him, Roc has been more hard at work and in demand than ever in 2025. In addition to his role as co-founder and community leader at QuickSwap, Roc serves on the Board for Polygon grants program, funding projects to elevate Polygon DeFi and its broader Layer 2 ecosystem.
To complement his work at Polygon, Roc is CEO at Lunar Digital Assets (LDA), an incubator and marketing agency specializing in Web3 technologies at all phases in the project development vertical. As a man with a powerful mind, Zacharias also serves as a mentor for Tim Draper’s BitcoinFi accelerator – focusing his attention on Bitcoin Layer 2s, SocialFi, DeFi, and NFT projects in the Bitcoin community, and as a city leader for BitAngels Pitch network, where he helps connect potent project founders with elite Web3 investors.
With a deep background in the industry and full plate of present engagements, the multi-talented Roc Zacharias is gearing up for exciting 2025 in Web3.
