The Logic Behind Reverse Investment Movement and the Secrets to Growing a Market Capitalization of Billions

Recently, the Ethereum Layer 2 Movement based on the Move language has sparked airdrop frenzy, and while achieving an exchange listing, it briefly entered the market capitalization of the ten billion dollar club. Against this backdrop, an investment institution shared its investment story in Movement, where the founding partner of the institution is one of the investors in Movement's Series A financing.

Looking back at 2023, the investment firm's team initially decided to abandon their investment in Movement, but this decision was ultimately overturned, prompting the team to re-evaluate the project. Today, $MOVE has officially launched—this is undoubtedly an epic story about how a non-consensus and contrarian investment decision ultimately became the "protagonist" of the industry. Even more surprisingly, all of this was co-created by two college dropouts. This article will delve into the struggles and reflections of the investment firm 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 based on Aptos, but after the Aptos ecosystem faced liquidity challenges last year, the team decided to turn to other platforms. The vision of Movement is to overcome the limitations of the Move ecosystem and establish a bridge connecting Move and EVM, but at that time the market was too niche and full of challenges, especially considering the limited resources of the team, which consisted of two college dropouts.

Although the investment institution has been supporting alternative virtual machine narratives and young entrepreneurs, it is hard to imagine how Movement can compete with Sui and Aptos, which have strong resource backing. These two projects are well-funded, have extensive networks, and are regarded as the "aristocrats" of the Move ecosystem. In contrast, Movement seems to have bleak prospects, which is why the investment institution initially abandoned this investment.

The cryptocurrency industry has long favored the principle of "superbrain" supremacy in its infrastructure investment approach, focusing too much on minor technological advances while neglecting the key human factors that ultimately drive success. This model is not new—Sayre's Third Political Law pointed out: "The academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are too low." This law perfectly explains the endless debates among "superbrain researchers" and the intense yet often counterproductive dynamics within projects dominated by intellectuals.

However, after multiple in-depth discussions with Rushi, the founder of the institution proposed a whole new perspective: a human-centered investment philosophy. The success of a project relies not only on the "super brains" of the group but also on those who can transcend the technical echo chamber, unite the community, motivate developers, and establish a sustainable ecosystem. As the industry matures, true entrepreneurs will increasingly be rewarded, rather than mere idealists and crypto geeks, which has already begun to show in the revival of several projects in this cycle.

Adopting a new programming language not only showcases its technical advantages but, more importantly, establishes a sense of identity among developers. This is not just a technical breakthrough; it also requires a clear distribution strategy and alignment with the identity of developers. More critically, there must be a charismatic leader who can inspire the next generation of developers, particularly those who transcend the traditional crypto-native community, to embrace this language and its ecosystem.

This is precisely the uniqueness of Movement and Rushi. As an independent third party, Movement has the potential to fill this gap. Rushi's story as a founder showcases resilience, ambition, independence from established paths, and relentless struggle, qualities that give him a unique founder character, making him a "dark horse" worth betting on. From this perspective, the agency's founder overturned the initial decision, and the team decided to firmly support Rushi, and the subsequent developments have indeed become a part of the history of the crypto industry.

Why choose the Move language?

There is indeed aesthetic fatigue in the market regarding infrastructure, but it is important to discern which efforts can drive industry prospects and which are merely minor optimizations. The industry often falls into pseudo-intellectual debates over micro-optimizations, 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 hindering this experiment. The funds lost each year due to vulnerabilities can reach billions of dollars, making the resource costs required to maintain on-chain security far exceed the benefits it brings, thus hindering true mainstream adoption.

At this point, the Move programming language played an important role. The Move language was created by the crypto team of a large tech company, fundamentally rethinking how to write secure, modular, and verifiable smart contracts. In short, the Move programming language is designed to provide developers and application builders with a fundamentally superior programming language. As detailed in the documentation of Movement Labs, Move aims to provide developers with a safer and more predictable development environment, significantly reducing the risk of catastrophic vulnerabilities.

Essentially, Move prioritizes correctness and safety in its programming language design. The result of this design is an optimized development environment that protects developers and users while facilitating experimentation without exposing the community to continuous risks.

Thanks to the early work of the Aptos and Sui teams—these projects were initiated by engineers and architects who originally developed Move at a large tech company—Move now has a real track record. Aptos and Sui have demonstrated that blockchain platforms based on Move can deliver strong performance and fulfill their promised security.

Why choose $MOVE?

Despite some progress in development based on Move, there are still gaps. As projects with "noble bloodlines," Sui and Aptos have rich resource support, but they have not fully unleashed their potential in terms of developer adoption (at least this is the case when the teams invested in Movement). Since 2023, these two protocols have received substantial funding but have failed to break through the market cycle and achieve real market appeal. Whether due to misaligned priorities or inefficiencies caused by inertia, their efforts have not made significant 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 promote the Move language. In just 18 months, the Movement Labs team has made remarkable progress:

• 45 million USD of private placement funds
• 60 applications running on the testnet
• Over 2000 hackathon participants
• $150 million TVL commitment
• 1 million active addresses
• 52 active Movement communities in different 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.

Fractal: Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) interpreter. To address developer experience and cross-chain integration, the Movement Labs team has 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 invests significant resources in developer education, community engagement, hackathons, and other grassroots activities. They do not impose a top-down vision but invite the community to participate together, creating an environment conducive to growth.

Why choose Rushi?

The crypto market has gradually deviated from its original cyberpunk spirit, becoming more and more like a game dominated by the privileged class and elites. At the core values of this investment firm's team is the consistent adherence to the philosophy of "emphasizing substance over identity"—prioritizing meaningful growth potential over superficial pedigree or background investments.

For many years, this investment institution has consistently supported anonymous founders and entrepreneurs in adversity, exposing the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed elites. This belief has led us to resonate deeply with founders who lack resources but go further with 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 by people from all walks of life—not only welcoming elites but also accepting 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 connections, ensuring that the drive for innovation comes from ability rather than privilege.

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

Their true qualities are particularly outstanding: humility, openness, rapid iteration, and disinterest in political or ranking games. For example, Rushi still lives in a small rental room and has promised to only wash his clothes properly after the "war time" chaos of the Movement TGE (Token Generation Event) is over. This unadorned resilience embodies the spirit of the new generation of builders.

When the Movement testnet was launched, it faced widespread criticism due to its task design, with many users complaining on social media about the heavy workload of the tasks. The team's response was a model of transparency. Within 10 minutes of receiving feedback, Rushi initiated a live stream to directly address the community's concerns. He published a detailed written clarification within an hour, ensuring that community members felt their voices were heard and valued.

We rarely encounter a team that responds to criticism so swiftly and remains grounded at all times. Rushi's leadership is characterized by honesty and directness, 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 sentiments and developer dilemmas, inspiring many of his peers.

It is important to know that building an ecosystem requires a lot of coordination and trust, and Rushi, as a first-time entrepreneur, has excelled in establishing meaningful interpersonal relationships. At the beginning of 2023, when GMX core contributor Coinflip introduced Movement to the investment institution, the team was impressed by Rushi's steadfast support. Despite the 20-year age difference between them, Coinflip's pride in Rushi's growth is evident, which also proves Rushi's ability to establish deep trust across generations.

Some people may think that "community-driven" is mutually exclusive with raising millions of dollars through private rounds of financing. But is that really the case? The ultimate goal of private investors and the community is the same: the success of the project and the positive effects it brings.

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