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Wayne
van Niekerk

Head of Growth @ Silhouette Exchange Cape Town, ZA

I scale ecosystems, close partnerships, and ship products with AI.

Portrait of Wayne van Niekerk
IMG · 800×800 HOVER ↻ DECODE
01

About

Growth leader with 8+ years in Web3. Currently Head of Growth at Silhouette Exchange on Hyperliquid, where I own go-to-market, branding, and team leadership. Previously scaled Fuel Labs' developer ecosystem to 60+ mainnet projects and closed their most strategic partnerships. I build with AI every day: shipping frontends with Claude Code and running a multi-agent AI ops layer. Dad of two. Hustle like I am 20.

02

Experience

APR 2025 — PRESENT Silhouette Exchange

Head of Growth

Silhouette Exchange · silhouette.exchange ↗

Own full GTM (branding, positioning, messaging, competitive strategy) for a crypto exchange on Hyperliquid. Drive growth across two products, Naked (high-volume perps, ~88% of platform volume) and Shielded (privacy-focused trading). Lead a cross-functional team across BD, marketing, and community. Vibe-coded SillySwap with Claude Code and built a six-agent AI ops layer.

OCT 2022 — MAR 2025 Fuel Labs

Head of Ecosystem

Fuel Labs · fuel.network ↗

Shipped Fuel Token, Mainnet, and Testnet launches. Grew the developer ecosystem to 60+ mainnet projects on a non-EVM stack. Ran the grant program and built partnerships across DeFi, GameFi, and NFTs.

SEP 2021 — SEP 2022 Linum Labs

Head of BD

Linum Labs · linumlabs.com ↗

Managed the full sales pipeline. Built partnerships with VCs and leading EVM protocols (closed EtherFi). Helped scale the team from 20 to 50.

03

Deal flow

~/bd/closed_deals.log 54 CLOSED · PG 01 / 03
Silhouette Exchange Head of Growth · APR 2025 — PRESENT
D-01
Hyperion DeFi · HAUS Settled · Mar 2026

Closed a HYPE Asset Use Service (HAUS) agreement with Hyperion: 100,000 HYPE staked to unlock Hyperliquid's Platinum tier, powering the spread-sharing fee model I designed. Silhouette's shielded base rate dropped 30%, and 95% of every fee saving passes straight to the trader.

100K HYPE staked Platinum tier Base rate −30% 95% to traders
announcement ↗ fee model ↗
D-02
Native Markets · USDH Settled · Mar 2026

Closed a USDH rebate deal with the Native Markets team that brought USDH in as a quote asset across every shielded spot market on Silhouette. Shipped ahead of USDH's sunset.

USDH quote asset All shielded spot markets Rebate economics
announcement ↗
D-03
Silhouette Seed Round Closed

Played a role in closing Silhouette's $9M seed round at a $50M valuation.

$9M raised $50M valuation
04

Broadcast

Signal archive: posts and campaigns from my desk, on my handle and Silhouette's.

signal_archive.tv — UHF CH 01 / 05
@silhouette_ex Jun 2025 Launch day

Move freely. Introducing Silhouette: The Shield Exchange on Hyperliquid 🥷

The thread carried the $3M pre-seed announcement, led by RockawayX.

196KImpressions
818Likes
205Reposts + quotes
● REC View on X ↗
05

AI-related work

~/ai_work 4 ENTRIES
W-01 SillySwap Mobile-first DeFi frontend. Vibe-coded with Claude Code. sillyswap.xyz↗ W-02 Silhouette Docs Rebuilt the docs from scratch for Silhouette Exchange on Hyperliquid, shipped with Claude Code. docs.silhouette.exchange↗ W-03 Internal Dashboard AI-built internal analytics dashboard for Silhouette Exchange on Hyperliquid (demo, sample data). internal-dashboard-demo.vercel.app↗ W-04 Trend Interior Marketing site for a Cape Town home-builder. Vibe-coded with Astro, tuned for local SEO. trendinterior.co.za↗
06

Toolkit

GTM Strategy Marketing & Branding Positioning Business Development Ecosystem Development Strategic Partnerships Product Management Leadership Community DeFi / Layer 2s Token Launches AI Development (Claude Code) AI Agent Orchestration
//

Off the record

the_orderbook.exe — running REC ●
Surreal retro-corporate scene: raptors in shirts and ties at a vintage CRT computer
Fig. 07 — eight years in the orderbook.