In-depth analysis of Movement Chain: Ethereum's first EVM L2 based on MOVE language

This article is reproduced from Wu Blockchain, written by Wu Shuo, originally titled "Dialogue with Movement Chain Co-founder: The first Ethereum Move EVM L2 solution receives investment from Binance and OKX."

In this podcast episode, we discussed parallel execution technology and the development of Movement Chain with Rushi, the co-founder of Movement Chain. With an engineering background, Rushi has rich experience in both the crypto and traditional Web2 fields. He shared the latest progress and future plans of Movement Chain. By adopting the Move language and parallel execution technology, Movement Chain brings higher security and throughput to the Ethereum ecosystem. The team is dedicated to promoting the adoption and development of Movement Chain through transparent incentive programs and extensive community interaction.

Introduction to Rushi and Movement Chain

I am one of the co-founders of Movement Labs and a core contributor to Move It Foundation and Movement Chain. My background is in engineering, and before entering the cryptocurrency field, I worked in the traditional Web2 industry for 8 years, primarily focusing on distributed systems and cryptography. I previously worked for a health insurance company, managing large-scale database operations from local databases to cloud architectures. When I learned about Facebook developing a new programming language called Move while still in university, I started building applications on Move. My co-founder and I built the first app on the App Store, and after the FTX event, we launched the Movement project.

Movement is the first Ethereum Move EVM Layer2 solution, a Move virtual machine fully compatible with EVM. Similar to Solana's Solang and Neon, we built Fractal, an EVM interpreter running on Move. Any Solidity code can run and be fully compiled into Move bytecode, activating the virtual machine. This way, you will have the same parallelization capabilities as Aptos and Sui, and we make it compatible with EVM.

How is Parallel EVM Achieved?

We built Fractal, an EVM interpreter running on Move. While Solana has Solang and Neon, we built Fractal, which is embedded within Move EVM. Therefore, any Solidity code can run and be fully compiled into Move bytecode, activating the virtual machine. This way, you will have the same parallelization capabilities as Aptos and Sui, and we make it compatible with EVM.

Choosing Move for its Speed and Security

We support Move and EVM. We also support Solidity and any EVM applications, but we chose to build with Move because we need high throughput and increased security. Aptos, Sui, and Facebook developed Move to be the safest programming language. Billions of dollars in smart contracts are hacked each year, and Move is designed to prevent most common smart contract attack vectors, thereby enhancing security. Major hacks like Curve, Kyber, and The DAO are impossible in Move because it incorporates formal verification by design. Thus, Move is the fastest and safest language. Additionally, we support EVM, enabling support for EVM and Move for consumer and high-throughput level applications.

If you look at Solana, it took four years to truly emerge. Move is still in its early stages and needs time for wallets, infrastructure, applications, and developers to join. Our approach is to bring EVM developers to Movement while attracting new developers. As developers work on Movement, they will find Move faster and more secure, leading them to learn Move. If they prefer not to learn Move, we also support EVM. We attract both Move and EVM developers by being EVM-compatible and offering high-throughput parallel EVM.

Technical Advantages over Optimistic Rollup and ZK Rollup

Currently, there are three main types of Rollup: Optimistic Rollup like Arbitrum and Optimism, ZK Rollup like ZK Sync, Tyco, Scroll, and next-generation Rollups like Movement. Eclipse and some other projects are also developing such technology. We focus on bringing high throughput execution capabilities to Ethereum. Compared to zkSync and Optimism, our costs are lower. These chains can only handle a maximum of 100 transactions per second as they use single-threaded virtual machines. Move is multi-threaded and brings parallelization, allowing us to achieve transaction throughput in the tens of thousands per second on Ethereum, providing efficient execution.

Popularity of Meme Coins and Movement's Strategy

We have seen some Meme coins gaining popularity online, with some coins rising by 40% using only gas fees on testnets. However, Meme coins are primarily popular on Solana due to lower costs and better transaction experiences. There is not a significant Meme coin culture on Base, Arbitrum, or Optimism because these chains are too slow for transactions to run smoothly. Movement can support high-throughput execution, making us a potential center for Meme coins. Our team is also very interested in Meme coins and trading culture.

Western users are more focused on speculation, as personalities like Elon Musk and others are involved in Meme coins, while Eastern cultures focus more on practical trading cultures, such as the origins of Bitcoin. I believe the Western market is more focused on speculation and celebrities, with some trading as well. We need to see how the market evolves and if Meme coins can sustain.

User Base and Regional Preferences

Our largest community is actually in East Asia, including Indonesia and Korea, where we have many users. Vietnam is also a significant part of our community. Additionally, we have a large community in Africa, such as the Movement communities in Ghana and Nigeria, where we see a lot of user and community activity. Latin America is also an important market for us. So, our user base extends beyond East Asia to include Africa and Latin America, which have a significant impact on us.

New Ideas on Airdrop Distribution and Preventing Abuse

We currently have several ideas, one of which is an activity we call the gmove campaign, where we will launch a points program. For example, whoever posts the most gmove tweets on Twitter, we will track and reward them. We are also collaborating with some community members to explore other interesting ideas. Unlike other Layer 0 and ZK projects, we aim to make airdrop standards very transparent. Many projects disappoint users due to unclear airdrop standards, leading to high user expectations. We plan to make it clear to users what tasks they need to complete, how many points or services they can earn, and what rewards they will receive. We aim to increase user satisfaction through more transparent airdrop standards and leaderboards, making the entire process more gamified.

We prioritize users who organize community meetups, such as in the Movement communities in Nigeria, Ghana, and Indonesia. If you organize meetups and community activities or are building applications, posting Move-related tweets, or actively using our platform, you will be given priority. We aim to prevent airdrop abuse by prioritizing users who genuinely contribute and support the community. Through verification via Discord and Twitter, ensuring the applications built have complete front-ends, and not just spam submissions, we can prevent abuse. We want to prioritize core users and community members rather than airdrop farmers.

Move: The Only Framework to Real-Time Prevent Hacks

At Layer 1, some projects like Monad are working on parallel EVM. Our approach is as Ethereum's Layer 2, giving you Ethereum's liquidity, security, and decentralization. Secondly, we focus on making Move a parallel engine, not just parallel EVM. Move language and Move's security principles will be introduced to Ethereum. Billions of dollars in smart contracts are hacked each year, and Move is the only framework that can prevent these attacks in real-time, acting as a firewall for cryptocurrencies.

Which Applications Can Accelerate Adoption of Parallel Execution?

I believe fully on-chain consumer applications, such as trading, gaming, and social applications, will be key use cases. We are particularly excited about Bracket, a fully on-chain gaming platform where you can participate in basketball, March Madness, and sports games entirely on-chain without using centralized databases. We see fully on-chain games and competitions as critical use cases. We will also announce a decentralized GPU partnership in the coming weeks, making computations between nodes easier with decentralized AI and parallel execution, aiding social and gaming applications on-chain.

Which Applications are More Likely to be Killer Applications on-chain?

I believe consumer-oriented applications will be the killer applications. For example, DeFi does not require such high throughput. If you are using the lending market, choosing Aave to run on Ethereum is sufficient. But if you are running a fully on-chain order book or a fully on-chain game where transactions require high throughput and low latency, parallel execution is crucial.

Upcoming Events for Movement

We will launch a testnet in the next two weeks, around mid-July. The mainnet is planned to go live in the third or fourth quarter of this year. We will also be showcasing and discussing at some significant events like KBW Korea Blockchain Week and Token 2049. If you are at these events, feel free to reach out to us.

Users can use the testnet to experience our native projects, which have a total value of over $50-60 million that we have raised. Our goal is to create a vibrant DeFi ecosystem with essential DeFi applications and consumer apps. We value the community greatly and have built a large Movement Gorillas community with meetups organized globally. If you are interested in our project, please reach out to us.