Article source: Primitive Ventures

Compiled by: Nancy, PANews

Recently, the Ethereum L2 Movement based on the Move language has sparked airdrop frenzy, achieving a 'grand slam' with exchange listings while briefly joining the FDV billion club. Against this backdrop, investment firm Primitive Ventures published an article sharing its investment story in Movement, with founding partner Dovey Wan being one of the investors in Movement's Series A financing.

Looking back at 2023, the Primitive Ventures team initially decided to pass on investing in Movement, but this decision was ultimately overturned by Dovey Wan, prompting the team to re-evaluate the project. Now, $MOVE has officially launched—this is undoubtedly an epic story about how a contrarian investment decision that lacked consensus ultimately became the 'protagonist' of the industry. More surprisingly, all of this was built by two college dropouts. This article will delve into Primitive Ventures' struggles and reflections in their investment decisions, as well as Movement's growth and transformation over the past 20 months.

Veto

Initially, Movement was just a decentralized application (dApp) based on Aptos, but after Aptos's ecosystem faced liquidity challenges last year, the team decided to pivot to other platforms. Movement's vision is to overcome the limitations of the Move ecosystem and build a bridge connecting Move and EVM, but at that time, the market was too niche and challenging, especially considering the limited resources of the team, which consisted of two college dropouts.

While Primitive Ventures has been supporting alternative VM narratives and young entrepreneurs, it is hard to imagine how Movement could compete with Sui and Aptos, which have strong resource backing. These two projects are well-funded, have extensive networks, and are regarded as the 'nobility' of the Move ecosystem. In contrast, Movement seems to have a bleak outlook, leading Primitive Ventures to initially pass on this investment.

The crypto industry's approach to infrastructure investment has long leaned towards a 'super brain' supremacy principle, overly focused on minor technical advancements while neglecting the key human factors that ultimately drive success. This model is not new—Sayre's Third Political Law pointed out: 'The malignancy of academic politics is due to the stakes being too small.' This law perfectly explains the endless debates among 'super brain researchers' and the intense yet often counterproductive dynamics within intellectually dominated projects.

However, after multiple in-depth conversations with Rushi, Dovey proposed a completely new perspective: a human-centric investment philosophy. The success of a project does not solely depend on a group of 'super brains', but rather on those who can transcend technical echo chambers, unite the community, motivate developers, and build sustainable ecosystems. As the industry matures, true entrepreneurs will increasingly be rewarded, rather than mere idealists and crypto geeks, as evidenced by the resurgence of Hyperliquid, Ethena, and Solana in this cycle.

Adopting a new programming language is not just about showcasing its technical advantages, but more importantly, building a sense of identity among developers. This is not just a technical breakthrough; it requires a clear distribution strategy and alignment with the identity of developers. Crucially, there must be a charismatic leader who can inspire the next generation of developers, especially those beyond the traditional crypto-native community, to embrace this language and its ecosystem.

This is precisely what makes Movement and Rushi unique. As an independent third party, Movement has the potential to fill this gap. Rushi's story as a founder showcases resilience, ambition, an unwillingness to rely on established paths, and an unyielding spirit of perseverance, which endows him with unique founder traits and makes him a 'dark horse' worth betting on. From this perspective, Dovey overturned the initial decision, and the team decided to firmly support Rushi, and what followed has indeed become a part of crypto industry history.

Why choose the Move language?

There is indeed aesthetic fatigue regarding infrastructure in the market, but it is crucial to discern which efforts can drive industry prospects and which are merely minor optimizations. The industry often falls into pretentious micro-optimization debates, while the true power of blockchain lies in the continuous experimentation of human coordination and capital formation.

Currently, the security of smart contracts is one of the main obstacles to this experiment. The amount of money lost each year due to exploits can reach tens of billions, making the resource cost required to maintain on-chain security far exceed the benefits, thereby hindering true mainstream adoption.

At this point, the Move programming language plays an important role. The Move language was developed by Meta (formerly Facebook)'s crypto team, fundamentally rethinking how to write secure, modular, and verifiable smart contracts. In short, the Move programming language aims to provide developers and application builders with a significantly better programming language overall. As detailed in Movement Labs' documentation, Move aims to offer developers a safer and more predictable development environment, greatly reducing the risk of catastrophic vulnerabilities.

Essentially, Move prioritizes correctness and security in its programming language design. The result of this design is an optimized development environment that protects developers and users while facilitating experimentation without putting the community at constant risk.

Thanks to the early work of the Aptos and Sui teams—projects initiated by engineers and architects who originally developed Move at Meta—Move now has a genuine track record. Aptos and Sui have proven that Move-based blockchain platforms can deliver powerful performance and fulfill their promised security.

Why choose $MOVE?

Although there has been some progress in Move-based development, gaps still exist. Projects like Sui and Aptos, which have 'noble lineage', are well-resourced but have failed to fully unleash their potential in developer adoption (at least when the team invested in Movement). Despite receiving significant funding since 2023, these two protocols have not broken through the market cycle to gain real market traction. Whether due to misaligned priorities or inefficiencies caused by inertia, their efforts have not achieved substantial breakthroughs in building grassroots communities and developer ecosystems.

As mentioned earlier, the adoption of a new programming language depends not only on its technical advantages but also on establishing a sense of identity among developers. With the resilience and execution demonstrated by the founding team, Movement Labs has become the ideal team to advocate for the Move language. In just 18 months, the Movement Labs team has made remarkable progress:

· $45 million in private funding

· 60 applications running on the testnet

· Over 2000 hackathon participants

· $150 million TVL commitment

· 1 million active addresses

· 52 active Movement communities across regions

Movement Labs' vision is to create a safer and more scalable future for the crypto world, extending the advantages of the Move programming language to a broader crypto ecosystem.

· Ethereum L2 based on Move language: This solution combines the security and efficiency of the Move language with the world's largest smart contract ecosystem (Ethereum), allowing developers to enjoy the advantages of both development environments simultaneously.

· Fractal: Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) interpreter. To address developer experience and cross-chain integration, the Movement Labs team launched Fractal, allowing developers to convert Solidity codebases into Move-based environments.

· Community-driven participation: Recognizing that technology adoption relies on social norms, the Movement Labs team has invested significant resources in developer education, community engagement, hackathons, and other grassroots activities. They did not impose a top-down vision but invited the community to participate collaboratively, creating an environment conducive to development.

Why choose Rushi?

The crypto market has gradually deviated from its original cyberpunk spirit, becoming increasingly dominated by the privileged and elite. A core value of the Primitive Ventures team is to uphold the idea of 'substance over identity'—prioritizing meaningful growth potential over superficial lineage or background investments.

For years, Primitive Ventures has consistently supported anonymous founders and entrepreneurs in adversity, exposing the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed elites. This belief resonates deeply with us for founders who may lack resources but have gone further through resilience and perseverance.

Embracing the core spirit of the 'Roman Empire', the Movement Labs team strives to build an ecosystem from the ground up—an inclusive, resilient, and meritocratic ecosystem. Just as ancient Rome was a city built collaboratively by people from all walks of life—welcoming not only the elite but also outsiders, exiles, refugees, and those from lower social strata—Movement Labs is creating a home for these 'homeless developers'. Their strategy is to provide a supportive environment for talented developers who lack high-end resources or networks, ensuring that the drive for innovation comes from ability, not privilege.

In this market cycle, we have seen a decisive shift in the founder community: founders who deeply understand global communities and cultures are becoming the dominant force—this is also a key reason for our investment in Movement and Berachain, and even Solana's revival has benefited from East-West collaboration. As second-generation Indian founders, Rushi and Smokey bring a fresh perspective, combining Eastern philosophy with Western expertise in technology and capital markets.

Their true qualities are particularly prominent: humility, openness, rapid iteration, and disinterest in politics or ranking games. For example, Rushi still lives in a small rental apartment and has promised to only do laundry after the 'war time' chaos of Movement's TGE (Token Generation Event) is over (as shown in the picture). This unvarnished resilience embodies the spirit of the new generation of builders.

When the Movement testnet launched, it faced widespread criticism due to task design, with many users complaining about the burden of tasks on Twitter. The team's response was a model of transparency. Within 10 minutes of receiving feedback, Rushi initiated a live session to directly address community concerns. Within an hour, he published a detailed written clarification, ensuring community members felt heard and valued.

We rarely encounter a team that responds to criticism so swiftly and remains grounded. Rushi's leadership is characterized by honesty and straightforwardness, qualities that stem from his background. He is very eager to interact with the community in real time, participating in over 50 different breakout sessions during meetings to understand grassroots sentiment and the challenges developers face, inspiring many peers.

It is important to understand that building an ecosystem requires a great deal of coordination and trust, and Rushi, as a first-time founder, has excelled particularly in establishing meaningful relationships. In early 2023, when GMX core contributor Coinflip introduced Movement to Primitive Ventures, the team was impressed by Rushi's unwavering support. Despite the 20-year age difference, Coinflip's pride in Rushi's growth is evident, demonstrating Rushi's ability to build deep trust across generations.

Some might think that 'community-driven' is at odds with raising millions through private rounds. But is it really? The ultimate goals of private investors and the community are aligned: the success of the project and the positive effects it brings.

The essence of venture capital lies in supporting bold contrarian investments: backing ideas and founders when no one else is willing to take the risk. This is the true spirit of 'risk' capital.

We share this view, even though Primitive Ventures does not follow the typical venture capital playbook and does not rely on external capital like most VCs. Since Primitive Ventures is 100% self-funded, each investment is a true venture investment. This shared commitment connects us closely with early community members who also believe in the project's potential.

What people truly resent is not the venture capital investment itself, but the culture of circles, the sense of privilege, the family background game, and the hypocrisy and politics. When projects place financing milestones above actual results and genuine community participation, even openly belittling others as 'electronic beggars', this departure from the original cypherpunk spirit and financial populism ultimately leads to failure.

Under the leadership of Rushi and Coop, Movement Labs has demonstrated that these forces can be harmonized. By prioritizing transparency, humility, and execution, they have shown how to build a project that is lasting and loyal to community values.

The Korean market and financial populism

Tokens represent a financialized belief system, where market dynamics, human nature, and social psychology are key factors driving growth and adoption. The interplay of these elements creates a unique interaction between financial incentives and community participation, shaping how products resonate with their target audience. For crypto founders, entrepreneurship is a multidimensional challenge that requires mastery of capital markets as well as cultural development and technical adaptation.

The Korean market is a typical example of financial populism in practice. In our in-depth analysis of the Korean market, we explored (Culture and Capital Intertwined: Decoding the Landscape of the Korean Crypto Market), the country's vast wealth gap, coupled with strong social and peer pressure, has not only resulted in the world's lowest birth rate but has also fostered a loyal fan culture—willing to invest in projects that resonate with them, whether spiritually or economically, in a 'YOLO' (You Only Live Once) manner. If founders can invest time in building local connections, cultivating 'local heroes', and maintaining a continuous presence, they can nurture a strong fan base.

The Movement Labs team deeply understands these unique market characteristics and has tailored their strategies accordingly. By organizing local developer workshops, setting up local community centers and hotlines, and becoming a major sponsor of Korean Blockchain Week, they have demonstrated a deep commitment to the Korean market. This hands-on approach has earned them a reputation highly aligned with regional cultural and economic differences.

The last international project to penetrate the Korean market so deeply and conduct grassroots promotion before its official launch was Cosmos, but after the collapse of Terra, the market left a void for the rise of the new generation of crypto leaders. Movement Labs is ready to fill this void.

The results speak for themselves: the $MOVE TGE was the hottest event in the Korean crypto market this year. On the first day of TGE, the premium of $MOVE on local Korean CEX soared to 100%, and Upbit's price performance significantly outperformed Binance, with $MOVE's trading volume becoming the highest trading pair of the entire year. TGE and price movements are the strongest marketing strategies for any project, and $MOVE successfully conquered the Korean market with powerful momentum.

MOVE premium on Korean CEX (Source: @kysmeplzz)

If Move represents the next evolutionary leap for smart contracts, then Movement Labs is undoubtedly the driving force ensuring this potential is realized—this potential is not limited by geography or demographics but seamlessly integrates into the global crypto ecosystem. Embracing the spirit of the Roman Empire, Movement Labs is building a digital global city that welcomes everyone: developers, users, and communities from all corners of the global crypto space. This city thrives on cohesion, transcending age, race, language, nationality, and beliefs, uniting people in pursuit of innovation and inclusivity.

As Rushi said on TGE night: 'The work has just begun.' Welcome to join Movement.