Today we continue to look at a project that recently went live, which is the airdrop project we mentioned in our community in July, called Movement. This time the airdrop rewards are relatively generous, but after launch, the price performance of the token has been quite average. Although it is a major project, many friends have asked me to explain it, so today we will analyze this project in detail and see how the technical side of this project really is.
One. Introduction
Movement is a parallel MEVM (Move + EVM) Ethereum L2 based on the Move development language, which means it supports both EVM and Move language. It combines the security and parallelization of smart contracts with the liquidity and user base of the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
Two. Movement Network
The Movement Network is the general Rollup of Movement Labs (Figure 1). It is the first Ethereum Layer 2 network (L2) that integrates Celestia data availability, a decentralized shared sequencer, optimistic Rollup, and achieves dual finality options through Fast-Finality Settlement. At the same time, it utilizes the Move Virtual Machine (MoveVM) for execution, providing unparalleled transaction throughput. This integration will allow developers to create high-performance, consumer-centric applications with minimal resource consumption.
2.1 Original components
Three original components of the Movement network:
1. Move Executor
- Supports MoveVM and EVM transactions, allowing Web3 developers to deploy smart contracts in Move and EVM bytecode on a single network.
- The uniqueness of this architecture lies in its support for two types of transactions, while most Rollups only support one.
- This feature enables Web3 developers to quickly adapt to the Movement Network, while Move Arena also benefits from this, allowing developers to expand new features on existing EVM applications and utilize the advanced features of the Move platform.
2. Fast-Finality Settlement module
- Fast-Finality Settlement relies on a set of validators staking native tokens. These validators must confirm the correctness of the new state through majority consensus (e.g., 2/3 of the total staked amount).
- Provides fast finality while enhancing the utility of the Movement Network's native tokens.
3. Decentralized Shared Sequencer Module (DSS)
- Provides customizable transaction sorting and uses various templates (such as fair sorting to mitigate front-running attacks and enhancing censorship resistance).
- Unlike current sorting markets such as Espresso and Astria, DSS maintains the sovereignty of the Movement Network and the Move Rollup network while charging fees through built-in sorting, further enhancing the value of the L2 native tokens.
- DSS provides a fast, sovereign, customizable, and censorship-resistant transaction sorting mechanism that supports interoperability and enhances token utility.
2.2 Original framework
The team has also developed two original frameworks:
1. Move Stack
- With the Move Executor at its core, it supports the creation of customizable Rollups.
2. Move Arena
- Provides a framework for deploying and joining the Move Rollup network.
- Allows Rollup to connect to various components of Move Arena (such as fast settlement, DSS) and gain multiple advantages such as interoperability and fast finality.
Three. Move Rollup framework and MoveVM
Introduced the Move Rollup, which is a general Rollup architecture based on Move, specifically designed for Ethereum-secured Rollups. Move Rollup is a modular architecture that can configure the most suitable, efficient, and cost-friendly components according to user needs.
In Move Rollup, it provides fraud proofs, zero-knowledge proofs, and a new fast finality mechanism. In the fast finality mechanism, a network of validators staking native tokens is responsible for verifying the correctness of the new L2 state and the availability of data, thus providing ultra-fast and reliable finality with high economic security.
3.1 The architecture of Move Rollup
Move Rollup is a general architecture for creating Move-based Rollups. These Rollups use the Move Executor as a core component.
The general architecture of Move Rollup consists of a set of core components:
- Executor: Used to handle transactions and generate new L2 blocks.
- Bridge Contracts: Located on L1, used for asset deposits and withdrawals between L1 and Rollup.
- Connection to a Sequencer: Used for sorting transactions.
- Connection to a DA Service: Ensures that the settlement mechanism can access transaction data.
- Connection to a Settlement Mechanism: Used to verify the correctness of transaction execution.
3.2 Move Executor (The Move Executor)
All Move Rollups (such as the Movement Network) have their execution layer as MoveVM. The Move Stack provides an execution module, namely the Move Executor, which can execute both MoveVM and EVM bytecode. This module is the core part of the architecture and is not configurable.
Key features of the Move Executor module:
- Supports executing MoveVM and EVM bytecode on the same chain.
- As shown in the figure above, transactions are routed based on their type (Move or EVM) from the memory pool and executed by the corresponding virtual machine (MoveVM or Geth).
- In MoveVM, execution generates a Change Set, which is then applied to global storage.
- In Geth, transactions can either modify global storage directly or generate a Change Set for updating global storage.
- This universal format allows both Move and Ethereum transactions to update global storage consistently.
- Additionally, Geth also supports extracting read/write sets, which can be seamlessly used for BlockSTM (the built-in parallel execution engine of MoveVM).
Core advantages:
1. Parallel EVM support:
- The Move Executor reuses existing EVM interpreters (like Geth) and seamlessly integrates with MoveVM, making full use of its parallel execution engine to achieve parallel EVM.
2. EVM equivalence:
- The use of existing EVM interpreters ensures that Move Rollup is equivalent to EVM, and all EVM bytecode behavior executed on Move Rollup is completely consistent with Ethereum L1.
Ecosystem
Although the official website shows over 100 projects, none are noteworthy; they are all garbage projects.
Team
Movement Labs was co-founded by former Aptos engineer Rushi Manche and blockchain entrepreneur Cooper Scanlon. Both founders have participated in the technical development of Libra/Diem, and the background of the founding team is actually quite ordinary; the main reason for the project's success is still finding a few big names to endorse it!
It can be roughly divided into four stages:
1. Avalanche: Acquired incubation resources from Avalanche, bringing in star angels.
2. Aptos: Acquired Aptos investment and reused Aptos code to quickly have Move lineage.
3. Binance: Secured Binance endorsement and sponsorship, leveraging numerous resources in Asia.
Financing situation
Since the project's launch, Movement Labs has completed several rounds of financing. Specifically, including:
Pre-Seed funding round: In 2023, Movement Labs completed a $3.4 million Pre-Seed funding round led by institutions such as Varys Capital and dao5.
Series A funding: In April 2023, Movement Labs completed a $38 million Series A funding round led by Polychain Capital. With this funding round completed, Movement's development team is able to accelerate product development and network deployment.
Binance Labs investment: In May 2024, Binance Labs also invested in Movement, further strengthening its financial strength and industry influence.
Token Economics
The total token supply is 10 billion, with currently 2.25 billion in circulation, a circulation rate of 22.5%. The current token price is $0.7, the lowest recently was $0.6, and currently, the market value is 1.5 billion, with an overall FDV of 7 billion.
In terms of token distribution, the initial airdrop is 10%, ecosystem + community 40%, early contributors 17.5%, foundation 10%, early supporters 22.5%. From the unlocking schedule, a large amount will be unlocked in the 10th month, and both early investors and initial contributors will start to unlock. Based on this event, it is estimated to be around October 2025.
In conclusion, regarding this project, I feel it does not have significant innovation; it merely occupies the Move space in the L2 domain. However, we should ponder why L2 is needed. The emergence of L2 is to solve the congestion problem of ETH, so this can only be said to forcibly add an innovation. One more unfortunate point is that I couldn't find the project's TVL. When I checked its browser data, I found that the number of daily active addresses is significantly declining, possibly because after the airdrop ended, many people stopped participating. Currently, the market value is also very inflated; the leading L2s like ARB are at 8.5 billion, OP is at 9 billion, and the ZK series like ZK is only 4 billion, so Move's 7 billion is definitely inflated; at least a halving would be reasonable. We need to pay attention to the project's development; if the project's development goes well and the TVL skyrockets, then it can still be considered. However, the L2 space is currently too competitive. As for the token strategy, we will explain that later.
