Unlock the high-performance L1 from Fogo: Thoroughbred Firedancer and take Ferrari to a new highway

Written by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Introduce

The cryptocurrency market is always a battlefield driven by attention, and projects in new trends often hide the greatest opportunities.

At the beginning of this year, the most obvious trend is the accelerated entry of institutional investors, as well as “Made in America”:.

As of early 2025, institutions already hold about 15% of Bitcoin’s supply, and nearly half of hedge funds are allocating digital assets, fueled by presidential legislation, the launch of Bitcoin ETFs in the United States, and the on-chain boom of RWA (Real World Assets).

As “institutional-level on-chain finance” gradually becomes a necessity, it is essential to support both traditional financial performance and decentralized infrastructure from both narrative and product perspectives.

Against this backdrop, suitable new infrastructure projects have become a new engine for seeking Alpha.

Recently, a project called Fogo has caught our attention; from the publicly available information, it seems to meet all of the above conditions.

A TL;DR version is:

Fogo is a Layer 1 blockchain specifically designed for institutional-grade finance, aimed at seamlessly bridging traditional finance with the decentralized world.

Technical Highlights: Utilizing Firedancer developed by Jump Trading as the sole client to achieve faster TPS and block times. Enhanced by Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), compatible with Solana application migration.

Team Strength: Led by former quantitative analysts from traditional financial institutions and early developers of Solana, backed by Douro Labs and Jump Crypto, rooted in the United States, aligning with this year’s narrative of “Made in America.”

Funding Background: Seed round financing of 5.5 million USD, recently raised 8 million USD on Cobie’s financing platform Echo with a token valuation of 100 million USD.

Participation Opportunity: The Flames Program has been launched, allowing users to earn points through various interactions and seize the opportunity for future airdrops, providing a stable entry point in the current volatile market.

In short, for those who aren’t tech-savvy, all you need to know is that Fogo is a new L1 with better performance and a wealth of resources and endorsements.

More importantly, it is the Flames Program activity mentioned above, as this is the focus of everyone’s attention.

Therefore, this article will first give a complete guide and introduction to how to participate in Fogo’s Flames Program, and then give a more in-depth interpretation of the Fogo chain.

Flames Program Event Complete Guide and Introduction

Previously, Fogo’s official Twitter had been conducting a countdown to warm up, and it can be seen that the project team has made sufficient marketing preparations for this event.

What is the Flames Program?

The Flames Program is an ecosystem incentive program launched by Fogo, which aims to promote the early development of the Fogo ecosystem by rewarding users for their active participation.

From the name, “Flames” is a continuation of the naming of the Firedancer client, symbolizing vitality and momentum within the ecosystem. According to official information, Flames is a form of points that may be exchanged for Fogo tokens or other ecosystem rewards in the future.

Every week, Fogo distributes 1,000,000 Flames to participants, rewarding users who contribute to the ecosystem. These contributions include interactions with ecosystem partnership projects and activity on official social channels.

Why participate in the Flames Program?

Early User Bonus: As an early initiative launched by Fogo, the Flames Program offers users a low-threshold opportunity to participate and accumulate ecological points. History shows that users who participate in similar early activities often receive extraordinary rewards, such as airdrops, priority rights, and more.

Future Potential: Although Fogo’s tokens have not yet been announced, it is foreseeable that Flames, as ecological points, will likely increase in value along with the development of the ecosystem. Participating in activities not only allows for an early opportunity to secure future token airdrops but also enables deep involvement in the construction of Fogo’s ecosystem.

Diverse participation methods: Whether you are a DeFi user, an active social media user, or a newcomer to blockchain, you can find a way to participate that suits you.

How to participate in the Flames Program?

According to official information, the main ways to participate in the Flames Program are divided into two categories: ecological cooperation project interaction and official social media active behavior.

Interaction of ecological cooperation projects

Pyth Network: Staking PYTH Tokens

Stake PYTH tokens through Oracle Integrity Staking (OIS). Users can participate in staking on the Pyth official website staking page (link).

It is important to note that Pyth currently offers two methods of staking.

For players participating for the first time, when entering the staking page, it is essential to choose the OIS (Oracle Integrity Staking) mode instead of the Pyth Governance mode to prevent the situation where staking tokens does not meet the eligibility requirements for the event.

In addition, if you have previously staked tokens in the Pyth Governance mode, you can participate in OIS directly without the need to unlock or re-stake; similarly, if your tokens have already been staked in the Governance mode before the launch of OIS, you can also participate in OIS directly without having to withdraw the tokens.

Ambient Finance: Trade or Provide Liquidity

Ambient (formerly CrocSwap) is a decentralized trading protocol that allows the combination of centralized and constant product liquidity of bilateral AMMs on any pair of blockchain assets.

Its founder Doug is also a co-founder of Fogo, so it makes sense that participating in this project would allow one to earn Fogo points.

In practice, you can trade tokens on the Ambient Finance platform or deposit tokens into liquidity pools (LP Vaults). This type of interaction will not only help you earn Flames, but also familiarize yourself with DeFi-related cooperative projects in the Fogo ecosystem.

Official social media active behavior

Fogo Discord: Stay active in the Fogo Discord community and earn Flames points by having roles.

Fogo Twitter: You can also earn points by sharing, commenting on, liking Fogo’s tweets, or retweeting content related to Fogo.

Rules and details of Flames

Points Accumulation: Flames will accumulate over time, forming your total points. Rewards are calculated weekly based on user contributions and automatically distributed.

Point weight: The point value varies for different activities, for example, staking PYTH tokens may earn more points than simple social media interactions.

Event dynamics adjustment: The official may adjust the event rules based on ecological development, such as adding or optimizing participation methods.

Leaderboard tracking: Users can check their score rankings through the official leaderboard, as shown in the figure below.

Leverage Solana’s Firedancer to drive Ferrari on a new highway.

If you are interested in Fogo’s technology and products in addition to participating in the activities, here is a simplified explanation we have summarized after researching Fogo to help you quickly understand it.

1. How exactly do I understand Fogo?

The official definition of Fogo is as follows: “Fogo is an SVM chain running the Firedancer client, designed to achieve large-scale real-time experiences.”

This sentence seems simple, but it hides a huge ambition for optimizing blockchain performance.

To understand what Fogo really means, we need to first understand two key technical concepts – SVM and Firedancer.

We try to make technical concepts as accessible as possible; for most readers, it’s more important to understand the effects that the technology can achieve.

Key Concept 1: SVM

Solana Virtual Machine is the core operating environment of the Solana network, which can be understood as its “operating system”. All smart contracts and applications running on Solana are executed through SVMs.

Key point: Fogo is based on SVM, which means it inherits Solana’s technical ecosystem, allowing developers to seamlessly migrate existing applications to Fogo.

Key Concept 2: Firedancer

Firedancer is a high-performance client developed by Jump Crypto specifically for Solana. Its goal is to make the Solana network faster and more stable.

Everyone should have heard of Solana’s Firedancer upgrade to some extent. In fact, by lowering the hardware requirements for validators, Firedancer makes it easier to run nodes.

The reduction of speed and cost, along with greater flexibility, makes it a key factor in addressing Solana’s scalability issues. Firedancer’s mission is to bring the performance of the Solana network closer to that of traditional financial systems, such as NASDAQ, which processes 100,000 transactions per second.

However, as of now, the Firedancer upgrade has not been fully implemented on Solana.

2. Okay, but why do we need to create a new L1?

Since Solana has the Firedancer upgrade, which is expected to make it faster and better after implementation, why is there a need to create another Fogo?

However, the problem still exists: even if Firedancer is faster, it cannot change one reality - Solana’s multi-client model means that network speed is limited by the slowest node, and not all validators can immediately switch to Firedancer.

As Fogo co-founder Doug Colkitt said: “It’s like having a Ferrari, but you’re driving it in the congested traffic of New York City.”

The Firedancer is like a Ferrari, but there are other factors on Solana that cause congestion.

So the solution became to create a dedicated highway for Ferrari.

Instead of letting Firedancer be dragged down, give it an exclusive stage. Fogo was born to maximize the potential of Firedancer, after all, everyone used the same client from the beginning.

Therefore, Fogo, as an independent new L1, is no longer limited by the multi-client model, and does not need to care whether the existing validator node will update the client (which was originally created from scratch), but completely unleashes the performance of Firedancer through a unified client and innovative design.

Why is the single-client model better?

When the blockchain network approaches the physical limits of hardware and network performance, differences between implementations of different clients can lead to performance bottlenecks.

As a result, Fogo was a “pureblood” Firedancer from the start, without having to undergo a “big bloodfight”.

3. Agreed, so how does Fogo actually work?

Single Firedancer client mode

Fogo’s primary innovation lies in selecting Firedancer as the sole standard client, completely abandoning the performance bottlenecks that could arise from Solana’s multi-client model.

To put it in one sentence, it is:

“Use only the fastest clients and keep your network at the highest level of performance at all times.”

If you are not familiar with Firedancer, you just need to have a rough idea of the benefits it brings. First is parallel processing, which means processing multiple transactions simultaneously, significantly increasing throughput; secondly, memory optimization allows the hardware where the nodes are located to utilize storage and other resources more efficiently, reducing latency caused by transactions. It is worth mentioning that Firedancer focuses more on hardware improvements, such as directly optimizing the interaction between nodes and physical devices, further compressing transaction processing time.

The meme below nicely illustrates the reduction in latency brought about by performance optimization.

Dynamic Multi-Region Consensus

Another core innovation of Fogo is the introduction of a multi-region consensus mechanism.

This mechanism dynamically optimizes the collaboration method based on the geographic location of validators, achieving ultra-low latency consensus while retaining the security features of global consensus.

Officially, this consensus mechanism is called “Follow the Sun” ( “Follow the Sun” ). Specifically, it means that validators dynamically adjust based on the active hours of the global trading area.

This metaphor implies that when the sun rises, it usually corresponds to a high trading volume period in a certain region, during which validation activities will be concentrated in that area. This mechanism ensures that the allocation of validation resources can match the rhythm of global trading activities, thereby enhancing the overall efficiency of the network.

We can briefly describe this consensus principle as follows:

First, validators are assigned to specific “consensus zones” based on geographic location, and validators within the region work closely together to achieve low-latency consensus.

Secondly, when special situations arise, such as regional consensus failure, the network will automatically switch to global consensus mode to ensure network stability.

At the same time, taking into account real-world factors, by rotating regions to avoid long-term control of the network by a particular jurisdiction, we can enhance censorship resistance; this can also help circumvent network interruptions caused by natural disasters or data center failures.

Selected Validators Set

Finally, in the selection of validators, in order to ensure high performance and stability of the network, Fogo adopts a strategy of selecting a curated set of validators, rigorously screening validators, and promoting efficient network operation through economic incentive mechanisms.

So what are the screening criteria?

First is the economic standard, validators need to meet the minimum staking requirements to ensure they have sufficient economic “chips.”

Secondly, there are hardware standards. Validators must also prove that they have high-performance hardware and network capabilities to support the operational requirements of the Fogo network.

In terms of economic incentives, validators receive higher earnings for using a high-performance client (i.e., Firedancer). The network’s dynamic block time and size parameters can put financial pressure on validators to choose the fastest client and keep it running efficiently, and if they fail to meet performance requirements, they may face financial penalties or be expelled from the validator set.

The advantage of this design is that it can avoid low-performance nodes from dragging down the overall performance of the network. Through the self-optimization of validators, it promotes the entire network to develop in a more efficient and stable direction.

Currently, Fogo is in the development network and is about to start the testnet phase, which means that more people can participate in the network.

Public data shows that Fogo’s development network (Devnet) can currently achieve 57,000 TPS, with a block time of less than 40ms; data from the testnet and mainnet remains to be further observed.

Finally, for comparison, let’s use a table to illustrate the similarities and differences between Fogo and Solana:

The narrative of institutional entry is correct, along with the appropriate team configuration.

Clearly, there are many high-performance L1s on the market. Why does Fogo have a place in this competition?

From the perspective of the ordinary player’s interests, do we have more reasons to pay attention to this project?

Perhaps we can start from three aspects: market trends, the project’s own team, and the resources it can connect with, to analyze more deeply whether Fogo is worth our in-depth participation.

1. Institutional entry has become a new trend this year, but it needs to be supported by infrastructure with lower latency and high performance

Institutional-grade blockchain is a key trend in 2025, especially in the US market. The U.S. narrative (e.g., the crypto-friendly policies of Donald Trump) and the involvement of old money (e.g., hedge funds allocating digital assets) have fueled this wave.

RWA Tokenization (Tokenization of Real World Assets) such as real estate and bonds has seen a total market value increase threefold over the past 12 months, demonstrating institutional interest in on-chain finance.

However, existing blockchain solutions (such as Solana) are limited by global consensus mechanisms, resulting in higher transaction delays, making it difficult to meet institutional demands for low-latency environments.

For example, high-frequency trading requires execution speeds in the microsecond range, while traditional blockchain block times are usually over several hundred milliseconds.

Fogo aims to achieve faster throughput and lower block latency through the Firedancer client and a multi-regional consensus mechanism, ultimately approaching the performance level of traditional financial systems (such as Nasdaq’s 100,000 transactions per second).

Since Fogo’s positioning is “enabling on-chain institutional-grade finance,” it is also suitable for application scenarios such as stablecoins (like USDC) and U.S. Treasury bonds.

2. Team members who better understand traditional finance

The trend is there, but we also need to ensure that we are in the trend.

The two co-founders of Fogo both have a bit of an American flavor.

Co-founder Douglas is a Technologist in the DeFi space, having developed trading systems at Goldman Sachs and is a frequent contributor to sharing insights on X.

By reviewing past posts, it can be found that Douglas has conducted extensive research on industry products such as DEX and perpetual contracts, and even designed a DEX called ambient.

The other co-founder, Robert, previously worked at Jump Crypto and has experience in institutional finance and has direct insight into the design of the Firedancer client.

Since Fogo is the new L1 based on the Firedancer client, this can be said to be a complete professional counterpart, or a direct pouring of Jump’s design experience into Fogo.

It is worth noting that Fogo is supported by Douro Labs, the team behind the Pyth oracle network, which provides real-time financial data that is crucial for DeFi and institutional applications.

Naturally, Pyth is also closely related to Jump Crypto, which is the developer of the Fogo technology stack (Firedancer), boasting strong resources and technical backing. This gives Fogo a competitive advantage in both the technical and financial fields.

3. Ecological Integration and Convenience for Solana Players

Fogo is based on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) and is compatible with the Solana ecosystem, allowing developers to seamlessly migrate existing applications, reducing development costs and the learning curve. This is a significant convenience for Solana users, as existing SOL assets can quickly flow to Fogo through the Wormhole cross-chain bridge, enhancing liquidity.

The integration of Pyth ensures that Fogo provides high-quality real-time data, which is crucial for DeFi and RWA applications. Wormhole supports cross-chain interoperability, allowing assets to flow between different chains, attracting more ecosystem participants. For example, users can bridge assets from Solana to Fogo and enjoy its high-performance environment.

4. Financing and Market Confidence

Fogo’s financing situation shows that investors recognize its potential.

According to Rootdata, Fogo completed an $8 million community round of financing through the Echo platform in January 2025, with a valuation of $100 million. Prior to this, there was a $5.5 million seed round led by Distributed Global.

The Echo platform is operated by the well-known overseas KOL Cobie, who has a high profile in the English-speaking community, making it easier to form a collective effect among investors.

Summary

The name Fogo literally means “fire,” symbolizing the project’s passion, drive, and innovative spirit, while also forming an intuitive connection with its flame icon.

Overall, Fogo’s narrative is not only about technological innovation but also about its vision to create an efficient bridge between traditional finance and Crypto, backed by the resources and team to execute it.

While aligning with the current narrative of “Made in America” in the cryptocurrency market, the label of “Fastest L1” is more likely to spark discussion and topics in the precious attention market.

For ordinary users, the Flames Program is an easy way to participate; for developers and institutions, Fogo provides a high-performance and highly compatible development environment.

In the future on-chain financial world, Fogo may become a link that cannot be ignored. If you’re looking for a project that has both technical potential and a clear opportunity to engage, Fogo is worth your time to get to know and get involved.