In 2023, our venture team initially passed on @movementlabsxyz before @DoveyWan vetoed that decision. Today, $MOVE is live — which may be the most epic story of a non-consensus and contrarian deal becoming the main character, built by two college dropouts.

Here we want to share our initial struggle with the deal and highlight the remarkable growth we’ve witnessed from Rushi and the team over the past 20 months.

The Veto

Movement was just a dApp built on Aptos, later pivoting away due to the lack of liquidity in the Aptos ecosystem back in 2023. The team’s vision was to overcome the limitations of the Move ecosystem and create a bridge between Move and EVM. At the time, this market seemed far too niche and challenging to penetrate, especially given the team’s resource constraints as two college drop-outs.

While we’ve always supported alternativeVMs and young founders, it was hard to envision how Movement could compete with the formidable resources backing Sui and Aptos. Both projects were well-funded, highly connected, and positioned as the “blue-bloods” of the Move ecosystem. By comparison, Movement felt like a long shot. Our venture team initially passed on the investment.

The crypto industry’s approach to infrastructure investments has long been giga-brain-centric, often prioritizing minor technical advancements over the critical human factors that ultimately drive success. This pattern isn’t new — Sayre’s Third Law of Politics reminds us that “academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small,” a principle that perfectly explains the endless petty debates among “giga-brain researchers” and the intense, often counterproductive dynamics of intelligentsia driven projects.

However, after multiple in-depth conversations with Rushi, Dovey introduced a fresh perspective: a human-centric thesis. It’s not just the giga brain crowd that determines a project’s success, but the someone who can transcend these technical echo chambers to rally communities, inspire developers, and build ecosystems that endure. As our industry matures, it will reward the real entrepreneurs more and more, instead of ideologists and crypto nerds, and we already see this already from this cycle’s main characters such as Hyperliquid, Ethena, and the renaissance of Solana

Adopting a new programming language is as much about creating a sense of identity among developers as it is about showcasing its technical merits. It requires more than technical superiority — it demands clear distribution strategies and identity alignment with developers who see its potential. Equally critical is a charismatic figurehead who can inspire the next generation of developers, particularly those beyond the traditional crypto-native demographic, to embrace the language and its ecosystem.

This is where Movement and Rushi stood out. As an independent third party, Movement had the potential to fill this gap. Rushi’s story as a founder encapsulated resilience, ambition, no path dependence, and a relentless willingness to grind, all the qualities that gave him a unique founder-market fit, presented a wildcard worth betting on. With this perspective, Dovey vetoed the initial decision and we decided to back Rushi with a leap of faith, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Why Move Language?

Infrastructure fatigue is real, but it’s important to discern what type of work advances the space forward and what’s simply a micro-optimization. Our space often falls victim to the pseudo-intellectual debate on micro-optimization when blockchain as the technology itself has shown that its real power lies in constant experimentation of human coordination and capital formation.

Currently, one of the main barriers to said experimentation is smart contract security. Billions are lost to exploits every year, which then hinder true mainstream adoptions as the resources needed to uphold onchain safety become much higher than the benefits.

This is where the Move programming language steps in. Pioneered by the FB/Meta’s crypto team, the Move language represents a fundamental rethinking of how to write secure, modular, and verifiable smart contracts. In a simplified sense, the Move programming language aims to offer an overall better programming language for developers and application builders. As detailed in Movement Labs’ own documentation, Move aims to provide a safer and more predictable environment for developers — one that drastically reduces the risk of catastrophic vulnerabilities.

In essence, Move prioritizes correctness and security from the ground up in its programming language design. The outcome is a development environment optimized to protect developers and users. It helps foster experimentation without subjecting the community to constant risk.

Thanks to the initial work of the Aptos and Sui teams — projects launched by the very engineers and architects who first developed Move within Meta — Move now has a real track record. Aptos and Sui have demonstrated that Move-based platforms can deliver robust performance the security promise it claims.

Why $MOVE?

However, despite this progress, there remains a gap. Sui and Aptos, despite being “blue-blooded” Move projects with significant resources, have struggled to fully realize this potential in dev adoption (at least back when we invested in Movement). Both protocols have been live since 2023 but failed to break away from the broader market cycle and gained traction despite the massive funding. Whether due to misaligned priorities or inertia, their efforts have fallen short in building grassroots momentum and cultivating a thriving on-the-ground community of developers.

As stated earlier, the adoption of a new programming language comes from creating a sense of identity among developers as it is about showcasing its technical merits. With the grit and execution power move shown by the founders, Movement Labs is the ideal team to evangelize the Move language. In 18 months, the Movement Labs team has been able to show exceptional traction:

• $45M in private funding
• 60 live apps on testnet
• 2,000+ hackathon attendees
• $150M in TVL commits
• 1M in active addresses
• 52 regional active Movement groups

The vision for Movement Labs is to create a safer and scalable future for crypto, by expanding the Move programming language edge to the broader crypto ecosystem.

• Move-based L2 on Ethereum. This expands Move language’s security and efficiency with the largest smart contract ecosystem (Ethereum), allowing developers to have the benefits of both environments.
• Fractal: EVM Interpreter. Understanding the importance of developer experience and cross-chain integration, the Movement Labs team has introduced Fractal, which enables developers to convert Solidity codebases into a Move-based environment.
• Community-First Engagement. Understanding that technology adoption follows social norms, the Movement Labs team has invested heavily in developer education, community inclusion, hackathons, and other grassroots initiatives. They didn’t impose a top-down vision but invited the community to co-participate and create a fostering environment.

Why Rushi?

The crypto market has increasingly strayed from its original cypherpunk spirit, often resembling a game for the privileged and elite. At our core, we’ve always championed the ethos of “long substance, short status” — prioritizing meaningful growth potential over superficial pedigree investment.

Over the years, we’ve consistently supported anonymous founders and underdogs while calling out the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed elites. This commitment has given us deep empathy for the struggles faced by less-pedigreed founders, whose grit often outshines their resources.

Staying true to Movement Labs’ Roman Empire-inspired ethos, the team seeks to build an ecosystem from the ground up — one that embraces inclusivity, resilience, and meritocracy. Just as ancient Rome was a city built by people from all walks of life — welcoming not only the elite but also outsiders, exiles, refugees, and individuals from lower social strata. Movement Labs is creating a place for “homeless developers.” Their strategy is to provide a supportive home for talented developers who lack access to high-up resources or connections, ensuring that innovation is driven by ability, not privilege.

In this market cycle, we’ve seen a decisive shift towards founders who deeply understand global communities and culture- a key factor behind our investment in Movement and Berachain. Even the Solana renaissance owes much of its success to collaboration between East and West. As second-generation Indian founders, Rushi and Smokey bring a fresh perspective, blending Eastern philosophy with expertise in Western technology and capital markets.

Their authenticity stands out: humble, open-minded, quick to iterate, and uninterested in politics or the ranking game. Rushi, for example, still lives in a small rented room, promising to do proper laundry only after surviving the “wartime” chaos of Movement’s TGE. This unvarnished grit reflects a new generation of builders.

When Movement’s testnet launched, it drew widespread criticism for its quests, with complaints flooding Twitter about the heavy workloads involved. The team’s response was a masterclass in transparency. Within 10 minutes of receiving feedback, Rushi initiated a livestream to address the concerns directly. He followed up within the hour with a detailed written clarification, ensuring the community felt heard and valued.

We’ve rarely encountered a team so responsive to criticism and so grounded in their approach. Rushi’s leadership is defined by honesty and directness, qualities that stem from his background. He’s comfortable engaging with the community in real time, going to 50 different side events during conferences to understand the ground sentiments and developers’ hardships, inspiring many from his own generation.

Building an ecosystem demands extensive coordination and trust, and Rushi excels at forging meaningful relationships, even as a first-time founder. When GMX core team member @coinflipcanada introduced us to Movement in early 2023, we were struck by Coinflip’s unwavering support for Rushi. Despite a 20+ year age gap, Coinflip’s fatherly pride in Rushi’s growth was palpable, a testament to the trust Rushi inspires across generations.

Some may argue that being “community-driven” and raising millions through private rounds are mutually exclusive. But is that really true? Both private investors and the community ultimately share the same goal: the project’s success and its positive externalities.

The essence of venture capital lies in backing bold, contrarian bets: supporting ideas and founders when no one else dares to take the risk. That’s the true spirit of “venture” capital.

We align with this perspective, even though we don’t follow the typical VC playbook or rely on outside capital like most VCs. With 100% skin in the game, every bet we make is a genuine venture bet. This shared commitment aligns us with the early-stage community members who believe in the project’s potential just as deeply as we do

What people truly resent isn’t VC backing itself but the inner circle mentality, the entitlement, pedigree games, and the hypocrisy and politics that often come with it. When projects prioritize funding milestones over real deliverables and genuine community engagement, going so far as to openly dismiss others as “e-baggers”, this goes against the original cypherpunk ethos and financial populism that have driven our space. This disconnect is the ultimate turnoff.

Movement Labs, under the leadership of Rushi & Coop, proves that it’s possible to align these forces. By prioritizing transparency, humility, and execution, they show how to build something enduring that remains true to the values of the community.

Korean Market and Financial Populism

Tokens are a Financialized Belief System. Tokens represent a financialized belief system where market dynamics, human natures & social psychology are essential components of growth and adoption. Their interactions create a unique interplay between financial incentives and communal engagement, shaping how products find resonance with their target audiences. For crypto founders, entrepreneurship is a multidimensional challenge, requiring mastery of capital markets, cultural development, and technological adaptation.

The Korean market is a prime example of financial populism in action, where we had an in-depth analysis of our Korean market deep dive: The Interplay of Culture and Capital: Decoding South Korea’s Crypto Landscape. The country’s substantial wealth gap, combined with intense social and peer pressure, has fostered not only the world’s lowest birth rate but also a culture of diehard fans willing to YOLO into projects that resonate with them- whether spiritually or financially. It’s a market where authentic, mission-driven founders can cultivate strong followings if they invest time in building local connections, nurturing “local heroes,” and maintaining a consistent presence

The Movement Labs team recognized these unique dynamics and tailored their strategy accordingly. By organizing on-ground developer workshops, establishing a local community hub and hotline, and becoming a lead sponsor of Korea Blockchain Week, they demonstrated a deep commitment to engaging directly with the Korean market. This hands-on approach earned them a reputation as a team that understands and aligns with regional cultural and economic nuances.

The last international project to make such an early grassroots effort even in the pre-launch stage in Korea was Cosmos, but after Terra’s collapse, the market was left with a vacuum for a new generation of crypto leaders to emerge. Movement Labs has positioned itself to fill this gap.

The results speak for themselves: $MOVE TGE was the hottest event in South Korea’s crypto market this year. Local CEX premiums surged as high as 100% on day one, with Upbit’s price action significantly outperforming Binance’s, and $MOVE’s trading volume hit the highest of all other trading pairs of the entire year. TGE and price action are the most powerful GTM strategies for any token project, and $MOVE has scored the Korean market with full momentum.

If Move represents the next evolutionary leap for smart contracts, then Movement Labs is the driving force ensuring it achieves its full potential- not limited by geography or demographics but seamlessly integrated into the global crypto ecosystem. True to their Roman-inspired ethos, Movement Labs is building a digital global city that welcomes everyone: developers, users, and communities from all corners of the crypto landscape. This city thrives on cohesion, transcending age, race, language, nationality, and beliefs, uniting people around a shared vision of innovation and inclusion.

As Rushi texted on the night of TGE “Jobs just getting started.”

Welcome to the Movement.