UPDATED 12:25 EST / JANUARY 08 2025

BLOCKCHAIN

Movement Labs layer 2 Ethereum blockchain reportedly seeks $100M raise at $3B valuation

Movement Labs, the developer of a layer 2 blockchain for Ethereum based on Facebook’s Move language virtual machine, is reportedly raising $100 million in a Series B round that will value the company at about $3 billion.

Citing multiple sources, Fortune and Reuters reported today that the round would be co-led by CoinFund and Nova Fund, part of the digital asset arm of London-based investment firm Brevan Howard. The company raised $38 million in a Series A round in April led by Polychain Capital, a notable crypto investment firm, and drew support from Aptos Labs, an early supporter of the Move programming language.

Founded in 2022, Movement Labs developed its blockchain network to address vulnerabilities and inefficiencies in smart contracts within the Ethereum ecosystem, the second-largest blockchain network by usage and market cap only to Bitcoin.

The company developed what is called a layer 2 blockchain, a type of decentralized digital ledger technology that is layered atop another blockchain network, in this case Ethereum. It helps process blockchain transactions that operate decentralized applications and addresses security and privacy issues. Movement says that by organizing and compressing transactions better and providing superior security, it can provide faster and cheaper transactions.

Movement uses Move, a programming language developed by Facebook, owned by Meta Platforms Inc., to power the company’s now-defunct Diem blockchain crypto payment project to secure smart contracts. Smart contracts are self-executing programs that run on blockchain networks that serve as the core of decentralized applications.

Using Move and its layer 2 blockchain, Movement says, it can speed up Ethereum to up to 160,000 transactions per second with fees less than a hundredth of a cent.

The average transaction speed of the Ethereum blockchain is about 15 transactions per second. That has led to a vast crop of layer 2 solutions seeking to speed up transaction times more efficiently. Prime examples include Unichain, a finance-specific solution from the decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Uniswap Labs; Blockstream Corp Inc., which raised $210 million last year; Base, a developer-friendly layer 2 from cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc.; and Polygon, a major Ethereum scaling solution.

Movement launched its mainnet blockchain in beta mode last month alongside its MOVE token, which now trades on major cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance and Coinbase. According to data from CoinGecko, the token’s market cap peaked at $2.7 billion, but has declined to about $2 billion.

Image: Pixabay

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU