Modularity is hot. I know it, you know it. But we don’t get it (or at least I don’t). Join me as I stumble and bumble my way to minimum viable understanding.

Week 1 is all about Movement Labs, the first “network of modular Move-based blockchains.” I know some of those words!

Turns out this has nothing to do with Stepn

I, like you, initially assumed Movement Labs was providing a framework for some sort of physical activity/blockchain integration. Obviously step-to-earn had been done, but maybe move-to-earn, being broader, would include things like cartwheels-to-earn or deadlifts-to-earn.

Turns out the move in Movement is actually Move, a programming language which, at least in my limited exposure, has no athletics component. You may already be familiar with Move if you use Aptos or Sui or followed closely Facebook’s now-defunct stablecoin Libra. I don’t, and I didn’t, so I’ll start with the basics.

Move for Idiots

I don’t mean to force the label Idiot upon you. I wear it comfortably, like a sweater on its fourth season or a pair of running shoes with no semblance of tread, but it may feel itchy or constraining. If this is true of you, when I say “for Idiots,” just assume I mean for someone with Idiot-level intelligence or better.

In talking about Move for Idiots I want to focus on the why. Why would anyone choose to develop a blockchain in Move when Solidity, for instance, has much greater uptake and a much larger development community?

One answer to this question appears to be security. In Solidity, among other languages, smart contracts are written in source language and subsequently compiled into bytecode before execution. Compilation verifies the source code before translation to bytecode. However, if a bad actor were to write malicious bytecode directly, he or she could bypass verification entirely. In Move, however, verification and the protections that come with it are encoded after compilation.

A second answer is throughput. Solidity uses sequential processing, wherein independent transactions must be processed in sequence. Move (along with Rust) can process independent transactions simultaneously, also known as parallel processing or parallel execution. The result is more transactions per interval.

Liquidity and Modular Movement

Aptos and Sui enjoy enhanced security and parallel execution via Move. While this is presumably very attractive to builders, what is less attractive is the fact that Aptos and Sui have a fraction of the liquidity of EVM chains. But what if you could have the security of Move and the liquidity of Ethereum? That is the highly-contrived question the fine folks at Movement Labs have paid me to ask (kidding).

Movement’s Layer 1 blockchain, M1, allows builders to deploy in Aptos-native Move on Avalanche, and thus take advantage of far greater liquidity. At the center of this integration is the modular Movement VM, which plays nice (this is as technical as I’m able to be) with different chains and consensus mechanisms. Haters will say I don’t fully understand what that means, and they’re correct!

TLDR and More Movement

From my perspective, the bottom line with Movement Labs is that it empowers builders of all origins to take advantage of improved security and parallel execution while tapping into that sweet sweet EVM liquidity. Movement does this by providing a modular VM that bridges existing Move-EVM gaps.

Beyond this, Movement is building an L2 called, you guessed it, M2. M2 will be a zero-knowledge L2 that is sequenced by M1. In its initial deployment it provides enhanced compatibility with Sui, but other features (e.g. using Celestia as its data layer) hint at future compatibility with Cosmos-ecosystem chains. Oh god it’s so modullarrrrrrrrr.

See you next week, Idiots.