Most people frame Fogo as “Solana, but faster.” That’s shallow.
~40ms blocks, ~1.3s finality, ~800 TPS sustained that pattern doesn’t scream retail. It signals quote churn, order cancels, bot rebalancing. That’s market microstructure, not meme traffic.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: when you optimize for latency, you attract the most optimized participants. They’re sophisticated, ruthless, and hyper fee-sensitive. They validate your performance edge then arbitrage it to the bone.
So the real challenge isn’t speed supremacy.
It’s economic design.
Can Fogo convert high-frequency order flow into sticky value? Can it structure fees, incentives, and liquidity in a way that rewards contribution not just extraction?
If it succeeds, it becomes core trading infrastructure.
If it doesn’t, it becomes a beautifully engineered highway that others monetize.
Performance brings attention.
Durable economics decides who keeps the upside.