The Cryptonomist conducted an interview with Cecilia Hsueh, CEO and Co-Founder, and Azeem Khan, COO and Co-Founder at Morph, a fully permissionless EVM L2 that uses a combination of optimistic and zero knowledge rollup technology to enable limitless possibilities in finance, gaming, social, and entertainment.

Can you share the story behind the inception of Morph and what motivated you to create a fully permissionless EVM Layer 2 solution?

When we were preparing the project, we noticed that almost all Layer 2 solutions in the market are technology-oriented, focusing solely on optimizing technology. However, we believe that technology should serve users and developers. We should first establish the ecosystem and then continuously upgrade the technology based on the needs of developers and users, rather than building technical infrastructure that no one uses.

Furthermore, blockchain mass adoption is still quite far from being realized. This is because the current applications in the industry mainly serve degens rather than ordinary users, making the application field very niche. Additionally, the user experience of these applications is quite poor. As a Layer 2 solution, we have the capability to establish an application ecosystem that is more closely aligned with the daily lives of ordinary users, truly bringing blockchain into the mainstream era of technological applications.

What were some of the most significant technical challenges you faced in developing Morph, and how did your team overcome them?

To build the decentralized sequencer and staking mechanism for zkevm layer2 is innovative and challenging. At first, we improved the consensus by adding checkpoints to sign the layer2 batches. And then we developed zk circuits for sequencer set change. In addition,  we developed a staking mechanism in smart contracts instead of nodes to reduce the complexity of zkevm.

Can you give us a glimpse into Morph’s future roadmap? What major milestones or innovations are you most excited about in the coming year?

This year, Morph’s main milestones include the mainnet launch in Q3, the token launch and mainnet upgrade in Q4, and the simultaneous development of Layer 3 based on Morph L2. In terms of the ecosystem, we will be partnering with one of the world’s largest credit card issuers to place the settlement layer of their crypto credit card on Morph. Additionally, we will collaborate with other top traditional financial institutions to help them migrate their consumer-facing applications from traditional finance to the blockchain.