Disrupting Ethereum! Anoma aims to create a true "decentralized operating system", so users no longer have to worry about cross-chain.

Original Title: Exclusive Interview with Anoma Co-Founder: Web3 is Dead due to EVM Involution, We are Rebuilding Everything with "Intent" at the Core

Original author: chalex

Source text:

Reprinted: Daisy, Mars Finance

The interviewee for this special feature is a hardcore Web3 infrastructure builder, Adrian, co-founder of Anoma. His background began with academic research (censorship-resistant voting), then delved into core development of Cosmos, and finally led to the founding of his own validator company.

The original intention of Anoma's establishment comes from his weariness and boredom with the current "involution" in the Web3 industry. For example, the blockchain is now filled with many L1/L2 chains that are essentially just copying Ethereum's EVM without any applicability or user presence. He wants to break this involution situation, which is why Anoma was founded. Anoma's vision is not to create a faster chain, but to build a "decentralized operating system for Web3," a new architecture that can unify and abstract all the complexities of underlying chains, centered around the concept of "intention (Intent)."

The background of Anoma co-founder Adrian

Dongqu: Hello Adrian! Can you first tell us about your background and what inspired you to create Anoma, this intent-centric L1 blockchain?

Adrian: I entered the crypto space in 2015 and 2016, initially for my master's thesis, which focused on implementing censorship-resistant electronic voting on Ethereum. I approached this field not from a financial perspective, but from the standpoint of sovereign infrastructure (sovereign infrastructure). I am quite concerned about the possibility of a third world war, and blockchain offers a way to rebuild the financial system, making it highly resilient and sovereign.

In 2017, I joined Cosmos as the third core developer. By 2020, I noticed a very obvious problem: all the new chains were just doing the same thing—"We want to create a slightly different EVM." They did not address the issue of counterparty discovery, did not solve the problem of user data sovereignty, and did not fundamentally bring anything new. The birth of Anoma originated from a desire to do something truly interesting and meaningful again.

Anoma is a blockchain born out of intention.

Motion District: Do you think the biggest problem in the current Web3 is "fragmentation"? How does Anoma's transition from "virtual machine (VM)" to "intention machine (IM)" solve this problem?

Adrian: Anoma is the first decentralized job system designed for Web3. It allows developers to focus on writing the applications they love, rather than being forced to choose which chain to settle on.

The core of this transformation lies in our realization that users do not have "trades" at all; they only have "intentions." Existing systems are designed around the Bitcoin model, but in a purely digital world, I am not buying milk in a physical store; my need is "I want to exchange ETH for BTC with anyone in the world." Anoma's intent machine is designed to accurately capture this high-level abstract demand.

It solves the fragmentation issue by allowing applications to define where their state is stored. For example, transaction states can be stored on Solana, while long-term assets can be stored on Ethereum. Users no longer need to manually perform cumbersome cross-chain operations; they simply express a high-level intent, and the system will execute the optimal path for them.

Moving Zone: Anoma's hybrid consensus mechanism sounds very special, claiming to be "more decentralized than Bitcoin and faster than Solana." What is the principle behind this? What benefits does it bring to developers?

Adrian: Yes, if you run Anoma locally, you can always be faster than Solana, because the speed of local consensus is the speed of light. And if you need extremely high decentralization and security, you can choose to run consensus globally, which will naturally slow down, just like Bitcoin.

The best part is that, as a developer, you don't have to make this trade-off for your users. You can develop a trading application, and then let users decide for themselves: for small payments, they might choose a fast local consensus; for large real estate transactions, they would opt for a more secure national consensus. This is completely different from Ethereum's design, which locks everyone into using the same consensus, providing developers and users with great flexibility.

Anoma Mainnet Launch and Token Distribution Plan

Dynamic Zone: The Anoma mainnet is about to launch and will initially support Ethereum. What direct opportunities does this mean for developers?

Adrian: If you are a developer looking to build innovative and cool applications, now is the opportunity. To be honest, there has been no fundamental innovation at the infrastructure level in this field since 2017. The things you can do when developing applications on Ethereum are not much different from what you could do in 2017. Anoma provides developers with a wealth of new tools to build applications that can truly be used and are user-friendly for ordinary people. Our goal is to first conquer Web3, then leverage the power of Web2, and ultimately upgrade the coordination systems of the entire world.

Moving Zone: The community is very concerned about your tokenomics, especially the allocation of up to 25% for the community and the interesting "Shrimp NFT." Can you discuss the design philosophy behind this?

Adrian: Anoma is primarily an open-source community that cares about the long-term development of human coordination infrastructure. The design of the token is intended to reflect this, allowing the community to participate in the governance, risks, and rewards of the system. As for why the Shrimp NFTs? I have to admit it was the team's idea; they showed them to me, and I thought they looked fun and cute, serving as a cultural symbol that the community can engage with. It's that simple!

Extended Reading: Anoma announces the $XAN tokenomics: Total supply of 10 billion tokens, 25% airdropped to the community, how long is the lock-up period?

As a builder in Web3 solving complex problems, do you have any interests or habits outside of coding that help you gain inspiration or relax?

Adrian: I have two things to relax. One is playing video games, mainly League of Legends. The other, which I find more effective than any meditation, is full-contact combat sports like Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and Judo. Seriously, getting punched once or twice a week is more effective than anything else. Because during a fight, you have to be 100% focused, otherwise you’ll get hit in the face. If you need to relax, go do Muay Thai; I highly recommend it.