Movement-based blockchains are rising in total value locked (TVL) this year, with Sui jumping 233% and Aptos also showing significant growth of 210%, according to data aggregator DefiLlama. Rushi Manche, co-founder of Movement Labs, believes that compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) could fuel this growth even further.
“I think the biggest problem for new systems is how to get developers and new users on board, and a lot of these next-gen and new VM languages are realizing that if you don’t have compatibility for EVM, you’re going to miss the amount of growth that that yields really limited results. you have the first two or three years,” Manche told Crypto Briefing.
Ethereum’s mainnet alone dominates over 67% of all decentralized financial TVL, which is why new blockchains based on new virtual machines must create compatibility. Movement’s M2 is the first layer-2 blockchain based on Move that is compatible with EVM applications and can help bridge the gap between these two ecosystems. They are still in the devnet phase, and the testnet and mainnet phases will start later this year.
Move is the language created by Meta to implement their crypto project called Diem. However, due to regulatory pressure, Diem was shelved and two different groups were created, consisting of former Meta employees, Aptos and Sui.
“Broader than that, Movement itself has a network of blockchains where anyone looking to launch their own high-throughput custom rollup on Ethereum can use the Move Virtual Machine to launch their own framework with OP stack, Polygon CDK or Arbitrum Orbit.”
To explain how Movement combines EVM and Move, Manche draws on the traditional technology sector, where new technology has backward compatibility with what has been used so far. For example, he compared Sony PlayStation consoles, as new models are compatible with games launched for older generation versions.
“So the way we approach it is: EVM compatibility is a way for us to get legacy software on board. If you want to write Uniswap, Aave, or code from Arbitrum, the best way to do it is to use the EVM interpreter.”
Nevertheless, Manche still believes that long-term use and performance for smart contracts depend on the Move and Rust programming languages.