It's hard to track technological developments in cryptocurrencies, but one thing hasn't changed much. It is notoriously difficult to build blockchain applications. This is partly due to its decentralized nature, resulting in a lack of uniform standards across different parts of the infrastructure.
Founded by a group of developers in their late 20s, Initia seeks to increase the interoperability of multi-chain networks and simplify the process of creating app-specific blockchains, or app chains. While common household blockchains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin attract most users' attention, app chains have recently emerged that offer developers more freedom to customize things such as economic and governance structures. I am.
This fragmentation of the blockchain environment is divided into different types of gas fees (imagine having to pay in Japanese yen, US dollars, and euros just to use the various features of the app) and wallets (PayPal, You'll be asked to connect Apple Pay, WeChat Pay to one app), Explorer (imagine having Firefox, Safari, and Chrome open to perform different tasks within the same app).
“Moving assets between blockchains makes the situation 10 times worse,” Initia co-founder Ezaan Mangalji, aka “Zon,” told TechCrunch in an interview.
For example, the stablecoin USDC can have different versions on the same chain, such as bUSDC, USDCet, and USDCso. Mangalji explained that this is because “it's being forwarded to that chain through different paths or bridges in X, Y, and Z.” “One of the great things about Initia is that all assets are fungible across a multi-chain world. So in this example, across potentially thousands of app-specific blockchains, he There is only one type of his USDC.”
Developers similarly have to overcome many hurdles when building across the chain. Efforts like rollups have been made to improve the efficiency and scalability of blockchains by removing validator sets, but this method “can exacerbate fragmentation and is a challenge for developers. “It's not rigid or inflexible for people,” Mangalji said.
Meanwhile, Cosmos, another solution that tackles blockchain scaling issues, is “very flexible” but not easy to implement. “Each Cosmos Chain is a layer 1 blockchain that requires a set of validators, and teams must pay for security by rewarding these validators,” the founders said.
According to Mangalji, Initia helps overcome both of these challenges by providing a layer 1 blockchain network built specifically to enable a system of L2 rollups. These rollups can easily reach scale and sovereignty, and each is rooted in the Cosmos SDK for complete flexibility.
In layman's terms, Initia aims to abstract away the technical complexity of app chains and make them easier to use for both end users and app developers.
“I think the ultimate goal is to have thousands and tens of thousands of applications being built specifically on Initia, but also on Web3's crypto, without anyone even knowing this is a crypto project.” said Stan Liu, Initia's other co-founder. “What we want to do is provide the Apple App Store to give thousands of users easy access to these applications.”
Initia recently raised $7.5 million in seed funding to work on launching its testnet. The investment, led by Delphi Ventures and HackVC, marks a significant seed round injection amid the current slowdown in cryptocurrency funding. Other investors in this round include Nascent, Figment Capital, Big Brain, and A.Capital.
When Liu and Mangalji decided to found a cryptocurrency startup together in 2022, they set out in a different direction: decentralized finance, or DeFi. They paused the project after the FTX debacle and eventually pivoted to working on blockchain infrastructure. Mangalji explained the motivation behind the pivot:
“We realized that there were problems with the current blockchain, given that we were trying to create it ourselves during this economic downturn. [was] “Fragmentation occurs in both user and developer complexity,” he said. “So we basically re-teamed to build this vision for Initia. Initia built many of these parts in-house by building the right glue to hold the modular stack together. is running.”
Headquartered in Singapore, Initia operates a team of 20 people worldwide. The startup plans to use the new funding to grow its ecosystem, further develop its chain and platform, and support layer 2 applications.