I almost skipped over Fogo the first time I saw it mentioned.
High-performance L1. Uses Solana Virtual Machine.
Okay… so does that mean it’s just copying Solana? That was my first thought, honestly.
But the more I looked at it, the more that decision felt less like copying and more like anchoring.
Choosing SVM isn’t flashy. It’s not a “we reinvented execution” story. It’s closer to saying: this engine already works under pressure, so we’re not going to waste time redesigning it. We’re going to build around it properly.
That’s a different posture.
Most new L1s try to differentiate at the VM level. Custom execution. Custom syntax. Custom everything. Fogo doesn’t. It inherits a runtime that’s already proven in parallelized, high-throughput environments. Developers understand it. Tooling exists. Patterns are known.
But that familiarity comes with weight.
If something stalls under load, there’s no novelty shield. No “this is early architecture.” People will compare it directly to established SVM ecosystems. That’s a higher bar than launching with something completely new that nobody can benchmark properly.
And I kind of respect that.
High-performance chains don’t fail in demo environments. They fail when real users show up with unpredictable behavior. When fees spike. When coordination between validators becomes messy. Speed on paper is easy. Stability under stress is harder.
What I’m watching with Fogo isn’t the headline TPS.
It’s whether execution feels steady when nobody’s celebrating. Whether throughput remains uneventful. Because if a high-performance chain feels dramatic, something’s off. Infrastructure should feel boring in the best way.
There’s also something practical about building on SVM.
Fogo doesn’t feel like it’s chasing innovation theatre.
It feels like it’s betting that refining a proven engine is smarter than inventing a new one.
Speed grabs attention.
Consistency keeps builders.