I didn’t pay attention to Fogo because it claimed to be fast.
At this point, every L1 is fast on paper. Benchmarks don’t mean much anymore unless you’ve seen how they behave when real traffic shows up and nobody is cheering.
What made me actually look closer was the decision to build around the Solana Virtual Machine. Not a new VM. Not a modified one with branding layered on top. Just SVM, clearly stated.
That feels like a statement.
If you pick SVM, you’re stepping into a runtime that’s already been tested in chaotic conditions. People know how it behaves. They know the strengths — parallel execution, throughput — and they know the pressure points too. There’s no hiding behind “novel architecture” if something struggles.
And that’s where it gets interesting.
Choosing a proven VM shifts the focus away from theoretical innovation and toward operational quality. Fogo isn’t trying to reinvent execution. It’s trying to run it cleanly. That means the real differentiator won’t be TPS headlines. It’ll be how predictable the system feels when load increases.
From experience, high-performance chains don’t collapse because they’re slow. They struggle when coordination gets messy. When fee markets react unpredictably. When validators chase incentives in ways that destabilize throughput. Stability is harder than speed.
What I appreciate about Fogo’s positioning is the restraint.
There’s no dramatic pitch about rewriting blockchain fundamentals. It feels more like: here’s a runtime that works, now let’s build an environment around it that keeps it steady. That’s less flashy, but maybe more sustainable.
For developers already comfortable with SVM tooling, the friction is lower. You don’t have to relearn mental models. That familiarity matters more than people admit. Migration isn’t romantic, it’s practical.
Of course, it raises expectations too.
If performance wavers, comparisons will be immediate. Fogo inherits the benchmark that SVM ecosystems have already set.