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The reduction in chain launch costs has also led to an increase in the number of Layer 1 and Layer 2 on the market. Regardless of whether you think a new chain is useful or not, it is undeniable that there will be more projects in the market that will launch their own chains due to specific needs.
Just as there are more and more DEXs, there will be projects that build a “DeFi liquidity layer”;
And when there are more and more chains, is there any way to link all the chains together?
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Today's protagonist Initia is solving the above problem.
Last week, Initia announced the completion of a $14 million Series A round and a $2.5 million community round, bringing the total financing to $25 million. This includes a $7.5 million Seed round in October last year in which Binance Labs, Delphi Ventures, HackVC and others participated. The official also revealed that the mainnet launch and TGE will be completed in Q4.
Yi He, co-founder of Binance and head of Binance Labs, commented: “Binance Labs continuously identifies infrastructure providers that introduce novel solutions to accelerate the growth of Web3 applications. Initia’s innovative architecture and tooling is an important step in driving widespread adoption by a new wave of developers.”
A year has passed. In this issue, we will introduce to you in detail the core concept, technical features and progress of Initia, and the door to the interconnection of thousands of chains is about to open.
When you start learning about Initia, you will see the word "interwoven" a lot, which translates to interweaving .
Interweaving here means that different Layer2s can be interconnected, which will be reflected in consistent user experience, shared liquidity and security, etc. At the same time, since Initia supports EVM, MoveVM and WASM, in theory, both Ethereum and non-Ethereum projects can be smoothly migrated to Initia to form interoperability.
Of course, SVM is not included here for now. Initia co-founder Zon mentioned in a previous podcast that if demand increases in the future, he will consider supporting SVM.
Is Initia Layer 1 or Layer 2?
Initia = Layer1 + Layer2. In order to complete the concept of Initia, Initia actually built the entire new technology stack from 0-1, developing both Layer 1 and Layer2.
According to the official statement: Having a complete technology stack will enable Initia to implement chain-level mechanisms to coordinate the economic interests of users, developers, layer 2 application chains, and the layer 1 chain itself.
For more details, please refer to the project documentation: docs.initia.xyz/
Introduction to Initia basic concepts
Before we delve into the mechanism and implementation logic of Initia, it is necessary to clarify some new concepts and terms, which will allow us to have a clearer understanding of Initia's long-term vision.
Initia: The full name is Initia Orchestration Layer, that is, Layer 1, referred to as Initia , which is the basic layer for coordinating network security, consensus, governance, interoperability, liquidity and inter-chain messaging.
Minitia: Initia Rollups, or Layer2, also known as "Minitia" or mini Initias , are Layer2 solutions built on top of Initia Layer1, designed to enhance scalability and transaction throughput. They can run in EVM, MoveVM, or WasmVM, with the underlying CosmosSDK.
OPInit Stack : Initia Optimistic Rollup framework, referred to as OPInit Stack. OPInit Stack is the Optimistic Rollup framework built by Initia in CosmosSDK, which is used to protect Initia Rollups through fraud proofs and rollbacks.
Ominitia: The platform that includes all core components including Initia (Layer1), Minitia (Layer2s), OPInit Stack, Bridging Middleware, etc. is called Ominitia.
Enshrined Liquidity: Initia Layer1 introduces a unique consensus method that utilizes the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) mechanism and is enhanced by the x/mstaking module. This module allows multiple tokens to be staked directly to validators to gain voting rights. The module accepts individual INIT tokens from InitiaDEX or whitelisted INIT-X (corresponding Token) LP tokens as collateral, and this mechanism is called Enshrined Liquidity.
Doing so can improve liquidity on L1, facilitate interaction between L1 & L2, increase LP staker rewards, reduce security reliance on the volatility of a single token, and many other benefits.
InitiaDEX: InitiaDEX is the cornerstone of the Initia blockchain, a native DEX built on Layer1 using the Move language. InitiaDEX is more than just a trading platform; it is also an integral part of the Omnitia ecosystem, designed to facilitate liquidity and ensure seamless interaction between Layer1 and Layer2.
VIP: The full name is Vested Interest Program. Initia believes that with the increasing number of Rollups, there will often be problems such as inconsistent incentive mechanisms for dApps, insufficient utilization of native tokens, and inefficient incentive/subsidy distribution at the protocol layer. Therefore, Initia hopes to use the VIP program to solve the problem of interest distribution of Minitia (Layer2s) in the ecosystem, coordinate the interests of various participants in the protocol, and promote the healthy development of the ecosystem. More details will be introduced below.
The above is an introduction to some important concepts. In short, Initia has designed several unique mechanisms to coordinate the ecosystem to move in a consistent direction and encourage truly valuable innovations. For more information, please refer to the official documentation.
For any public chain, users and developers are important parts of its ecosystem. Many public chains attract developers or users by issuing rewards, hackathons, etc. For Initia, it is to provide the best interactive experience (BEST UX/DX) for both developers and users.
In a previous sharing, Initia co-founder Stan explained the design philosophy of Initia, emphasizing that the initial concept of Initia was to take into account the mobility of users between different applications. Although many heavy Ethereum users can easily move assets on the main chain, when using Layer 2, the situation becomes complicated.
Especially for those users who are not familiar with the ecosystem, when they want to cross the chain from one Layer2 to another Layer2, they even need to consult DefiLlama to know how to operate. When users are performing specific operations, they may also face the problem of confusion among various token standards.
Therefore, Initia decided to build a new ecosystem to simplify cross-chain operations and improve the overall user experience, and an interwoven network of multi-chain interoperability was born.
In terms of specific implementation, the previous article mentioned Enshrined Liquidity, InitiaDEX, and Minitswap, etc. As for the user interface, the figure below shows the process of a user going from Minitia A (EVM L2) ---> Minitia B (MOVE L2).
Through the built-in liquid liquidity of Initia Layer1, users can exchange USDC on Minitia A for BTC on Minitia B with one click; the USDC on Minitia A and the USDC on Minitia B are the same, and there will be no different standards such as USDC.e.
This greatly reduces the complexity of user operations, both in terms of the bridge and the token standard.
The prosperity of an ecosystem is inseparable from developers. In order to encourage more projects, many public chains will use rough Grant plans to attract many Grant Hunters, and many projects also lack loyalty.
For Initia, he mainly did two things:
1- Provide three types of VMs to embrace the most developers
As we mentioned earlier, Initia supports three virtual machines: EVM, MoveVM and WASM. There is no need to say much about EVM and MoveVM. The key point is WasmVM , or WebAssembly VM, which can run on different blockchains and supports multiple programming languages, such as C, C++, Rust, etc. This will also bring more potential developers to the platform and provide an important foundation for the prosperity of the ecosystem.
Last month, Arbitrum launched Stylus, which will also support WebAssembly VM, which shows the importance of this virtual machine to an ecosystem. In other words, for the current Initia, almost all the developers and applications of mainstream blockchains may become its potential ecological sources.
2- Developers can move in with their luggage and only need to focus on users and applications themselves
Initia co-founder Zon mentioned that they were influenced by Apple's design philosophy. He compared Rollups on Ethereum to Android, pointing out that this architecture provides infrastructure, but users face many choices in selecting service providers, bridges, oracles, etc. In contrast, Initia took a firmer stance in design and clarified the direction of the system's evolution.
In Initia's Layer 1 and Layer 2 frameworks, many components are solidified within the system. For example, bridging only uses IBC and Layer 0, and DA relies on Celestia, etc. They believe that all applications should develop in a direction consistent with Layer 1 to bring value to users and the ecosystem.
Each Minitia is an L2 environment with complete built-in facilities for applications with different needs to move in, turning it into a plug-and-play application chain without having to reinvent the wheel from 0 to 1.
Specifically, in addition to high performance, interoperability and other features, Initia's built-in key components include but are not limited to: unified wallet service, username service, blockchain browser, oracle, economic incentive plan, one-click reception of native USDC, multiple SDK support, etc.
Through these plug-and-play facilities, each Minitia of Initia provides the best environment for specific applications. This design not only lowers the entry threshold for developers, but also allows developers to accelerate the deployment and market promotion of applications, allowing developers to focus on innovation rather than infrastructure construction.
By Xangle
We have mentioned the “VIP” program several times in the previous article. Why is it so important to Initia?
Initia will set aside a portion of $INIT for the "VIP" program, which $INIT will be used to distribute specific rewards to Minitia operators and users based on the operation of each Minitia. The specific distribution and amount will be decided by voting.
Users’ rewards are tied to their activity on a particular platform. For example, if users remain active on a certain app, they can unlock more tokens. This way, users are incentivized to continue participating, driving growth in the ecosystem.
The two co-founders have previously talked about how VIP will eliminate the middlemen in traditional grant programs, ensuring that all rewards go directly to end users rather than being swallowed up by the team or the treasury. Developers can also benefit from this because they attract users and create economic value for the ecosystem.
The goal of the VIP program is to align the interests of all participants within the ecosystem, including the Minitia team, Minitia users, and the broader Initia ecosystem.
Building an ecosystem is easy and difficult at the same time.
The easy part is that you can directly attract some mature projects to fork onto your own chain through incentives; the difficult part is that these projects that fork onto your chain seem to prosper your ecosystem, but in fact they lack loyalty and are not sustainable.
Initia does not want to attract projects from other ecosystems and try to "standardize" them. Instead, they encourage unique and innovative teams to build their own native applications for Initia. At the same time, Initia will also provide these teams with marketing, incentives and development assistance.
According to the official website, there are currently 12 disclosed ecological projects (Minitias), covering AI, DeFi, GameFi, and NFT, as follows:
Many of these projects also involve the participation of institutions such as Binance Labs, Hashed, Polychain, and HackVC, and we can also feel the market's recognition of Initia's narrative.
Not long ago, Initia just completed a 12-week testnet activity. Users need to complete multiple activities and remain active to get the final Jennie NFT reward (Jennie is the pet of the Initia team and the main source of various memes). At the same time, if users deeply participate in the VIP plan, interact with MinitSwap, Minitias, etc., they can also get some specific Stickers.
The following is the official activity data shared by the event. Overall, this event attracted more than 3 million active wallet addresses to participate, with a total of more than 100 million transactions.
From my personal experience, Initia's test network activities require long-term activity and certification requirements (such as Github scores, Google scores, etc.), which to a certain extent avoids simple robot participation.
In addition, the most noteworthy thing is that Initia also revealed in this round of financing that it will mainnet and TGE in the next two months.
Many people pay attention to Initia probably because Binance Labs participated in it in the early stage. Personally, I think that VCs with good backgrounds are only one aspect, and the influence of "well-known VCs" has been gradually weakening. From a previous survey, we can see that users are less and less willing to buy into "well-known VCs".
If a project does not have a good community foundation and does not work with users and ecological projects, it is destined to become a ghost town.
I personally started paying attention to Initia simply because I saw that Yu-Gi-Oh, One Piece, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and other games with obvious cultural labels and elements that I liked were used in various ways on the team’s social media.
It was not until I discovered that they injected culture into their teams, communities, activities and ecological projects that I truly realized the importance of “having fun” and “making the ecosystem interesting” in building a community.
We are all Jennie's fans.
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