Fogo’s most aggressive feature isn’t speed. It’s pressure.
They’re building a chain where client implementations don’t “coexist” politely. They compete, and the protocol’s economics make the loser bleed: run a slower validator client, miss blocks, earn less. That’s the whole trick — client diversity without client diplomacy.
The roadmap makes that intent explicit: launch with Frankendancer (hybrid) and move toward full Firedancer as the end state.
Under the hood, this isn’t abstract. Firedancer’s design is literally shaped like a CPU: “tiles” as separate processes, and networking choices like AF_XDP to cut overhead and variance. It reads less like a whitepaper and more like someone trying to delete jitter from existence.
Then they standardize the other side of the stack too: Fogo Sessions (session keys, fewer prompts), with a paymaster line that’s actively shipping releases.
So the unconventional angle: Fogo isn’t “a faster chain.” It’s a chain designed to create natural selection — for validator software and for wallet UX — until only the most operationally disciplined setup can keep up.