Dennis Qian

Dennis Qian is a software engineer and entrepreneur whose career has focused on software development, financial technology, and cryptocurrency markets. He is currently Co-Founder of Definitive, having previously worked as a Senior Software Engineer at Coinbase and Tagomi and held several earlier engineering and startup roles. ^[6]

Education

Qian graduated from Rice University with a BS in Computer Science in 2012. ^[1]

Career

Qian began his career with a Software Engineer internship at Google before working as a Software Engineer at Zynga, where he contributed to the company’s mobile poker product for iOS and Android. During this period, he also co-founded ALICE&LOVE, an online marketplace for pre-owned fashion that used a virtual currency for transactions. He later co-founded Airseed, a data platform for email that was backed by Google Ventures and subsequently acquired by Superhuman, before joining Zenefits as a Staff Software Engineer. Qian subsequently co-founded Splitsecond Ventures, which focused on trade-execution automation for cryptocurrency markets. He then joined Tagomi as a Senior Software Engineer, working at the cryptocurrency prime brokerage before its acquisition by Coinbase. At Coinbase, he served as a Senior Software Engineer and led the design and development of an algorithmic execution engine for Coinbase Prime, supporting trading activity across Advanced Trader, Prime, and Derivatives. Qian is currently Co-Founder of Definitive, an onchain trading platform focused on institutional users.  ^[3]

Interviews

Advanced Trading

In a December 2024 interview on the BlockHash Podcast, Qian discussed his background in coding, Web3, and arbitrage trading bots before explaining the development of Definitive Finance. He described the platform as an abstraction layer across multiple blockchain networks, using smart contracts to manage account permissions while providing customizable trading infrastructure and advanced order types such as time-weighted average price (TWAP) orders to reduce market impact. Qian said the platform serves institutional investors, OTC desks, hedge funds, venture capital firms, and high-net-worth individuals, who use its API for automated trading, early access to assets, and execution in thinner markets including memecoins and AI-related tokens. He also discussed the potential for AI agents to interact autonomously with onchain financial systems, such as wallets executing trades based on sentiment or social signals, arguing that crypto’s permissionless architecture provides a useful environment for this type of experimentation. Looking ahead, he said Definitive planned to expand support for additional chains and explore features including mobile trading, yield products, and perpetuals, while expecting AI agents to become increasingly important to the next phase of crypto market activity. ^[4]

DeFi Quality

In a November 2024 interview on the Bankless Podcast, Qian joined Will Warren of 0x to discuss trade execution and the challenges of achieving high-quality execution in decentralized finance. They compared DeFi with traditional financial markets, noting that while traditional markets have developed sophisticated systems for optimizing execution, onchain trading must account for factors such as block producers, MEV infrastructure, and the constraints of trustless environments. The conversation examined the tension between decentralization and execution efficiency, including how systems such as Flashbots can improve trading outcomes while potentially concentrating influence among a smaller group of participants. Qian and Warren also discussed 0x V2, which was designed to improve quote accuracy, execution speed, liquidity access, routing, and transaction simulation in an effort to bring DeFi execution closer to traditional financial markets. They concluded by highlighting opportunities for builders to develop applications around areas such as tokenization, large trades, and institutional trading as onchain markets continue to mature. ^[2]

Presentations

Definitive’s AI Agents

In a May 2026 presentation at AI Clubhouse, Qian discussed how Definitive Finance integrated AI into its development workflows and used the technology to reduce the time required to build and ship new features. He explained that AI has changed the skills and roles needed within the organization, leading the company to favor versatile employees capable of making decisions across product, engineering, and design rather than maintaining more narrowly defined roles. Qian described changes to the design and testing processes, including replacing traditional Figma-based workflows with React prototypes generated through cloud-based coding tools and reducing manual testing in favor of AI-assisted validation, with greater emphasis placed on specifications and strategic oversight. He also discussed the use of contextual maps, internal AI agents, and parallel workstreams to coordinate development and improve productivity, arguing that organizational structure and effective use of talent are as important as the underlying tools. Qian concluded by outlining a multi-stage AI workflow for developing ideas, refining requirements, estimating effort, and executing projects, emphasizing that companies will need to adapt their talent and processes as AI becomes more deeply integrated into software development. ^[5]