Stay informed and never miss a Foolproof update!
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Blockchains are often called “decentralized world computers,” but let’s be blunt: they’re computers without memory. This architectural flaw has held the space back for years, creating technical bottlenecks that have kept blockchains stuck, limited to DeFi and digital collectibles, without ever breaking into the rich, real-time experiences we see in Web2. Optimum wants to change that.
The problem starts with how blockchain networks are designed. Unlike traditional computers, which rely on RAM to store and retrieve data quickly, blockchains have no native memory layer. Instead, they store everything; account balances, smart contract variables, NFT metadata, onchain in permanent, disk-based storage. Reading or writing this data requires pulling from a slow global state that every node in the network has to maintain. Worse, to spread data across the network, blockchains use peer-to-peer gossip protocols, where every node rebroadcasts the same messages to its peers. This works for resilience, but it’s inefficient. As networks scale, the system slows down, transactions per second (TPS) hit a ceiling, latency spikes, and developers are forced to bolton off-chain solutions like indexers and centralized caches to keep apps usable.
This architecture has real consequences. High latency and limited throughput make building truly interactive decentralized applications impossible. Costs rise as the network becomes congested, and developers are stuck relying on semi-centralized infrastructure, undermining the ethos of decentralization.Today, most “onchain” applications aren’t onchain. They settle to the chain but do everything performance-sensitive; game logic, social interactions, financial calculations, off-chain. Without a breakthrough, blockchains will never grow beyond settlement layers.
Optimum is aiming straight at this limitation. Its core idea is simple but radical: bring memory to blockchains. Optimum introduces two core innovations. The first,OptimumP2P, is a next-generation publish-subscribe protocol that dramatically improves how data moves across the network. Instead of gossiping redundantly,OptimumP2P intelligently routes data, reducing bandwidth waste and speeding up delivery to validators. The second, Optimum deRAM, acts as a decentralized random-access memory layer, giving applications fast, atomic, and durable access to blockchain state. Optimum deRAM is a system that could move blockchain performance from dial-up to broadband.
Random LinearNetwork Coding (RLNC) is at the heart of this architecture, developed by MIT professor Muriel Médard. RLNC breaks data into small chunks, encodes them into random combinations, and guarantees that the original data can be perfectly reconstructed even if some pieces are lost. This approach reduces bandwidth requirements, improves fault tolerance, and radically speeds up data propagation across the network.
But Optimum isn’t just about performance metrics like TPS or latency; it’s about expanding the creative and technical canvas for blockchain developers. With a decentralized memory layer, entirely new types of applications become possible.
Imagine real-time DeFi protocols with onchain limit order books and predictive markets that run with the precision of centralized exchanges, but without the need for trust in an intermediary. Picture fully onchain multiplayer games where combat, trading, and player-driven economies are validated onchain, without the lag and clunkiness currently plaguing onchain games; while the purpose of MegaETH’s Crossy Fluffle wasn’t to push out the best game possible, even on one of the fastest testnets available, latency spikes prohibited the fully onchain game from running in real-time. Envision decentralized social networks with feeds, messaging, and notifications that feel as fast and smooth as Twitter orTelegram, but without centralized control.
Even advanced domains like artificial intelligence and data analytics could shift onchain. Today, the idea of training models or running complex data pipelines onchain is laughable because of the sheer cost and latency. A decentralized memory layer changes that equation, opening the door to onchain AI experiments, collaborative data markets, or even decentralized optimization platforms.
Due to their experience and subject matter expertise, Optimum’s team is uniquely positioned to pull this off: Muriel Médard, as co-founder, brings global credibility in network coding. Dr. Kishori Konwar, another co-founder, draws on deep expertise in distributed systems and artificial intelligence from his years at Meta. The third co-founder, Kent Lin, leads business development, bringing a sharp sense of where blockchain and venture intersect. Advising the team is Nancy Lynch, one of the most respected names in distributed algorithms and Byzantine fault tolerance; the very foundations of reliable distributed computing.
With $11 million in backing from 1kx, Robot Ventures, CMT Digital, and Animoca, Optimum is already building toward integration across major blockchain ecosystems. But what’s most exciting here isn’t just technical. It’s conceptual. Rollups, sidechains, and consensus tweaks have dominated the blockchain scaling conversation for years. Optimum’s approach adds something fundamentally new to that stack: memory. It’s not just about squeezing out more transactions per second. It’s about giving blockchains the architecture they need to evolve from slow settlement layers into full-fledged global computers.
If Optimum succeeds, blockchains will be faster and more capable. Ultimately, this could be a driving force in helping push Web3 from an experiment to a globally used infrastructure.
References