Lorimer Jenkins

Lorimer Jenkins is the Co-Founder and CEO of LiquidOps, a decentralized lending and borrowing protocol built for the Arweave and AO Web3 ecosystem. Based in the UK, Jenkins represents a younger generation of crypto founders who entered the industry through hands-on building, venture research, and ecosystem development rather than a conventional university or corporate finance path. His work focuses on bringing DeFi primitives, including lending, borrowing, and yield opportunities, to the Arweave network and its expanding application layer.

Overview

Jenkins is best known for building LiquidOps, a protocol designed to support decentralized liquidity markets around Arweave-based assets. The project emerged from earlier work called Operation Liquidity, which was conceived as a way for users to earn interest on AR tokens. Its development coincided with growing attention around AO, a computing layer associated with Arweave that aims to expand the network’s ability to host decentralized applications and autonomous processes.

LiquidOps is part of a broader effort to bring established DeFi infrastructure to ecosystems beyond Ethereum and Solana. Lending and borrowing markets are foundational to DeFi because they allow users to supply assets, borrow against collateral, access liquidity, and create more efficient capital markets. Jenkins’ work applies these concepts to the Arweave and AO environment, where permanent data storage and decentralized computing create a distinct technical context.

Career and Background

Born in Hertfordshire in 2003, Jenkins initially trained in acting and musical theatre before shifting into blockchain as a teenager. Rather than following a traditional university route, he pursued opportunities directly in the crypto industry. He contacted hundreds of companies, founders, and investment firms, eventually securing an unpaid internship at a crypto venture fund. That role later developed into a paid analyst position, where he contributed to venture capital and hedge fund operations focused on digital assets.

Jenkins later built a crypto transaction analytics website, a project that attracted support from the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems through grant funding. The project gave him experience as a solo founder, working with contractors, managing development, and building tools for on-chain data analysis. This early builder experience helped shape his later work in DeFi and protocol design.

Community Labs and Arweave Ecosystem Work

Jenkins later joined Community Labs as its first outside Fellow after the company raised its seed round. During his time there, he worked on several projects connected to the Arweave ecosystem, including Othent, Oases, subsidise-JS, and AO Ventures. These projects exposed him to wallet infrastructure, developer tooling, ecosystem support, and application development within Arweave’s broader network.

At Community Labs, Jenkins met Marton, the founder of ArConnect, an Arweave Web3 wallet. Their collaboration led to the concept behind Operation Liquidity, a DeFi protocol focused on AR token liquidity and yield. The project later rebranded as LiquidOps and spun out of Community Labs as its first fellow spin-out.

LiquidOps

LiquidOps is a decentralized lending and borrowing protocol focused on the Arweave and AO ecosystem. The platform is designed to help users access liquidity and earn yield through on-chain markets. According to Jenkins’ background materials, the project’s early waitlist saw strong demand, with $2 million pledged in the first two hours and later growing to $55 million in indicated interest from more than 3,000 signups over several months. LiquidOps subsequently raised a $325,000 pre-seed round to support development.

• Lending and borrowing: DeFi markets intended to allow users to supply and borrow assets within the Arweave and AO ecosystem.
• AR token liquidity: Early focus on creating financial utility around Arweave’s native asset.
• AO ecosystem alignment: Built to support emerging applications and assets in the AO environment.
• Community Labs spin-out: Developed from Jenkins’ fellowship work and later formed as an independent project.

Relevance to Crypto Markets

Jenkins’ work is relevant because DeFi infrastructure is expanding into new blockchain ecosystems that offer different technical foundations and user communities. Arweave is known for permanent data storage, while AO is designed to support decentralized computing. If these systems attract more applications, they may also require native financial infrastructure, including lending markets, liquidity tools, and collateral systems.

Risks and Considerations

LiquidOps operates in a market with technical, liquidity, and adoption risks. Lending protocols must manage collateral volatility, smart contract security, liquidation design, oracle reliability, and user demand. New ecosystems also face uncertainty around asset depth, developer adoption, and market maturity. Jenkins’ role as Co-Founder and CEO places him at the center of these challenges as LiquidOps works to build DeFi infrastructure for Arweave and AO.

• LiquidOps Co-Founder and CEO