been watching this Fogo launch. everyone's flexing 40ms block times - 10x faster than Solana. impressive. but honestly? missing the point 😂
what bugs me about speed narrative:
Fogo's "fastest L1 for trading" with sub-second finality. but who's asking for this?
most DeFi users aren't doing high-frequency arbitrage. they're aping memecoins, farming yields, LPing. does someone staking care if blocks finalize in 40ms vs 400ms?
maybe institutional traders care. maybe. retail? probably not.
what Fogo actually built:
not just faster Solana. optimized everything for trading specifically.
Firedancer client, multi-local consensus, validators clustered geographically, embedded Pyth oracles, frequent batch auctions to reduce MEV.
genuine engineering for specific use case. not "higher TPS" marketing.
the #Tokenomics Analysis:
$FOGO underneath this. 10B supply, 2% inflation, stakeable for yield.
if trading volume materializes, more usage = more gas burned = more demand. mechanical.
but 66% token to team/foundation. concentrated even with vesting. ecosystem is 5-6 protocols. Valiant, Pyron, couple LSTs.
Solana has hundreds. Base exploded. speed doesn't guarantee adoption.
my concern though:
solving problem traders have or building Formula 1 for go-karts?
Solana does 400ms finality. for 99% of DeFi, that's fast enough. maybe overkill.
ICP bet on speed, nobody cared. Solana bet on speed AND got adoption. Fogo's same gambel.
"curated validators" for performance = decentralization theater. necessary for 40ms but tradeoff nobody admits.
what they get right:
if institutonal capital flows on-chain, latency matters. JPMorgan, Jump Crypto backgrounds legit. $13.5M from serious names.
SVM compatibility = Solana devs port easily. smart distribution.
focused on trading specifically. focus could work or limit upside.
what worries me:
fastest chain matters if people use it. "Only Possible on Fogo" apps don't exist yet.
most likely? Fogo works great technically, stays niche. speed matters for 1% of users. building for that 1% is genius targeting or missing market.
honestly don't know if 40ms unlocks new use cases or overengineering for problem Solana solved. watching if institutional traders show up or infrastructure waiting for users who don't exist.
what's your take - does trading need 40ms or is Solana's 400ms enough?? 🤔
