Thread by @beniaminmincu

0/ On MultiversX, its future, and taking the lead

A thread, some fresh thoughts and perspectives. 🧵

– grab a ☕ of tea or coffee, it’s a bit longer than a tiktok vid –

1/ Some ideas we’ll cover:

1. 2024 – the year of the grind
2. xPortal & xMoney – next steps, direction and strategy
3. MvX – the big upgrade:

(a) US focus and priority

(b) Roadmap for 2025: Shard. Increase bandwidth, reduce latency

(c) Big network speed upgrade – sub-second finality – coming live 2025

(d) Economics & funding upgrade: big upgrade to be proposed, shared, discussed Q2/Q3, embedding growth at the heart of the network

(e) Interoperability & Lightspeed Chains (prev Sovereign Chains): Lightspeed kit will be ready at the end of Q1, one strategic Lightspeed Chain launch primed for 2025

(f) Introducing a dynamic North Star: driving immediate focus, coordination, alignment, through “Global Autonomous Markets”

4. Concluding thoughts: on building, investing, contributing to extraordinary value creation

2/ 2024 – the year of the Grind. War mode, focus mode

2024 was difficult, hardcore, but productive.

Difficult because it takes time to clarify things.

Hardcore, because it’s actually painful to make changes, take hard decisions, and execute.

Productive, because despite many challenges, important clarifying steps were made.

But all of it was necessary. No other way around it.

With these steps executed, the future looks stronger and brighter for MultiversX.

But why?

3/ Where we are now – Foundation set, Products unleashed

First, we’ve killed the dead weight. Then doubled down on what worked.

And the few bets we've made are now about to take off – big time.

xPortal, xMoney, xExchange, xLaunchpad -- are NOW all separate and independent projects, each of them set for significant growth.

We’ve mentioned this during our November townhall–now, it’s a reality.

Each of these projects will likely have their best year in 2025.

But why, what role will they play?

4/ Growth, growth, growth

Each of these applications are—and will continue to be—an extraordinary avenue for MultiversX growth.

xPortal: user growth.
xMoney: payments growth.

xExchange: liquidity, volumes, and community experimentation growth.
xLaunchpad: startup incubator and product growth.

They all grew inside the ecosystem. Now, they are ready to expand beyond it, tapping into new opportunities.

New ecosystems, new users and eyeballs, new liquidity.

Paradoxically, it’s when these projects become separate, independent, and self-sustaining that their growth will have the highest positive impact and spillover effect on MultiversX.

Very interesting—but how come?

5/ Powerful network effects drive value

On the one hand, this means separate entities, separate raises, separate pipelines, and no more selling pressure on EGLD.

On the other hand, and far more important, MultiversX gets subtly and elegantly exposed to all new ecosystems, all new eyeballs, all new liquidity.

Before you know it, the network effect of one big winner spills over to the next. And suddenly, you find yourself in completely new conversations, gaining new insights, securing new business deals, and unlocking unparalleled avenues for growth.

All of it contributing to the value of MultiversX and EGLD.

6/ xPortal & xMoney – It’s time to fly high

xPortal and xMoney are now in exceptional positions.

They will soon conclude new funding rounds and announce big plans.

The bigger the growth, the greater the odds of success for everything else.

It might seem scary at first, but surprisingly, this is the strongest position—and biggest blessing—possible.

The one everyone secretly wished they had.

7/ Innovation takes time, but it opens a new world

This all took a lot of time. An insane amount of time.
Much more than we all would have liked.

But if you bring exceptional individuals together, align their goals, and give them enough time, you will eventually see wonders happen.

Results compound, over and over, until perspectives shift from skeptical critique to a strong positive sentiment that becomes unstoppable.

A spark. This is how momentum begins. How winning feels.

And it’s about to ignite across the entire ecosystem.

8/ So how about MultiversX? What is the winning move for that?

Well, MultiversX is one of the most scalable and advanced blockchain networks in the world. It is live and open source TODAY.

And in 2025, the big upgrade is coming.

It will bring the biggest set of cumulative improvements since the mainnet launch.

Putting MultiversX at the frontier of technological growth.

But how?

9/ United States: The New Frontier

First, 2025 will be the year American growth accelerates. 🇺🇸

We are going all-in on America. No other place offers this kind of momentum, funding, regulatory advancements, government openness, and support that is conducive to our growth.

This is America's Golden Age - the start of one of the biggest potential booms for the American economy—and we intend to be at the frontier of it.

We have already begun this process, with many strategic meetings and discussions underway.

More specifically, we are now actively working to appoint a new foundation president, heavily focused on the US, with the intention to have this finalized by the end of Q1/Q2 2025.

10/ Network Speed is coming, with sub-second finality

Second, 2025 will be the year network speed is elevated.

For the past year, everything has been prepared, setting the ground for the biggest network upgrade in MultiversX’s history.

From its inception, MultiversX had unparalleled bandwidth and scalability, thanks to its breakthrough sharding technology.

Now, it's time to take the entire architecture to the next level with the most awaited and compelling network, UX and ecosystem improvement: sub-second finality.

This will change the game, enabling even better user experience, more streamlined costs, and even higher bandwidth for the entire network.

This big milestone is targeted for Q3 2025.

11/ Economic Upgrade, accelerating growth

Third, 2025 will be the year of a major new economic upgrade.

For the past years, we’ve been gathering a lot of research and feedback to refine and expand EGLD’s economics by embedding network growth at its core. The lessons we've learned have yielded several new ideas and insights, all of which will be consolidated into a new economics upgrade proposal.

This upgrade will bring (a) stronger incentives for validators and stakers, (b) new liquidity flywheel incentives, (c) new builder season incentives, and (d) new marketing and business development incentives – all aligned for a big-league play.

If we want to truly play the American game, accelerate and grow the pie significantly, this will be a crucial milestone, bringing a renewed wave of growth on all key verticals.

We aim to present a proposal and engage in community-wide discussions about the new phase of EGLD economics in Q2/Q3 2025. We are very much looking forward to your ideas and thoughts on this subject via the Agora.

12/ Funding the war chest

Fourth, 2025 will be the year of a strategic funding round.

We have already begun conversations to secure the funding needed to achieve MultiversX’s American ambitions.

To play in the big leagues—and win—we need a big league war chest. There is no way around it. The US is the big leagues, the game is played completely differently.

With this war chest, we will secure MultiversX’s position for the next 10 years, at the very epicenter of the new American technology era that is starting.

This is targeted to happen during Q2/Q4 2025.

13/ Lightspeed Chains, more growth

Fifth, 2025 will be the year when interoperability is transformed.

Let me state something surprising:

LIGHTSPEED CHAINS WILL BE READY BY THE END OF Q1 (!)

This alone is a billion dollar module. It is the simplest, fastest, L1 starter kit in the world. And now it also has a better temporary name :) 

Builders from all over the world will be able to bring their applications to life on it.

During 2025, there will be 1 Lightspeed Chain launch unveiled, connecting MultiversX with one of the biggest other blockchain networks in the world.

With new incentives, and new growth avenues.

This means new users, new devs, new liquidity, better alignment, and maximum leverage on the MultiversX technology that has been built, battle tested, and is live today.

This launch is targeted for Q2/Q3.

Lightspeed Chains will be effectively a 10x lever on MultiversX and EGLD, adding extraordinary new value flywheels to the entire ecosystem.

14/ Let an Ecosystem boom begin

Sixth, 2025 will be a year for the MultiversX ecosystem boom to begin.

For the past years, many hardcore builders have been building great tools and products.

This is the year they get their chance to shine, a chance to unlock new adoption pipelines, a chance to attract new liquidity into their ecosystems.

Now, with a clearer north star for the network, it will be up to them to push boundaries and make the biggest contributions to expand and grow the pie—for everyone.

15/ Faster – separate products, more engines

Seventh, 2025 will be the year of the separate products boom.

Every product and growth pipeline bootstrapped within MultiversX Labs and the MultiversX Foundation is about to start delivering new growth dividends, fueling ecosystem acceleration.

For all these products, this is just the beginning.

16/ Network > Foundation > Company

Eight, 2025 is the year of the network.

Not the labs, not the foundation, but the network. A network is more like a city or a country, rather than a company. A network doesn't have a CEO, doesn't have a CMO, doesn’t have a CTO. Neither does a city or a country.

A network has a core ethos. It stands for something. Its parts are made of nodes—users and citizens.

The more motivated and aligned these nodes are, the more unstoppable the network becomes. We are all the CEOs, CMOs, CTOs of the network. We are all the contributors and doers in this network. Every effort of each node, users and citizens adds up, translating into an avalanche of momentum.

High-agency, motivated, and aligned users.

This is our true strength. This creates a megawave unlike anything seen before.

17/ A North Star – Putting the puzzle pieces together

Now, how do we tie all this together?

What is the focused North Star that sharpens these pieces into a roaring economic engine?

The one that simplifies it, turning it into a meme-like, contagious, mind virus?

Nine, 2025 will be the year we introduce *Global Autonomous Markets*.

This is a crisp and evolving north star—from the outset our vision has been to build the very best blockchain infrastructure, with unparalleled performance, and pointing them to where they are needed most: open and decentralized markets and artificial intelligence.

The world's settlement, coordination, and accountability layer—engineered for markets, AI, robotics, and other high-impact, rapidly evolving domains.

In many ways, everything we have been building together over the past years has brought us to this point.

We have created a blockchain that is technically ready to offer the levels of scalability, trust, decentralization needed to become a leader and provide the transparency and programmability needed for the field of Artificial Intelligence.

This north star will provide a fresh focal point and mental model, shedding a new light on value creation, value accrual, and utility.

Not just for today’s world, but for the years to come.

18/ Challenges, challenges, challenges

Does this mean it will be all fun and games?
Does it mean it will be simple?
Does it mean that everything will work out perfectly?

Quite the opposite.

It means things will be tough and challenging. Some things won’t work out. Some will take much more time than initially thought. It means everything will be imperfect, and we’ll have obstacles thrown our direction every step of the way.

The world doesn't owe us anything. And no one is coming to save us.

Many times, it just feels like eating glass, and staring into the abyss.

But. The only way up, is through the challenge.

19/ On winning - Unleashing the wave

Truth be told, learning some of these lessons has been difficult.

I wish we had learned them faster. I wish we had seen and understood things sooner.

But some things take time.

Yet once the dots connect, a completely new perspective emerges.

20/ Concluding thoughts

(a) Together we have built a network and economy from zero to one billion. That alone is extremely rare and pretty insane. How do we take it to the first trillion?

(b) As a builder, remember that extraordinary value creation takes time. Think of Nvidia, Tesla, Amazon or Apple. Building any of those took 10-20 years before they hit a decent compounding trajectory. Those were built by the most brilliant people in the world, and it took them 10-20 years. Stop and think about that. Until what year would you have pushed forward? At what year would you have given up?

(c) As an investor, a minimal investment in any of those would have made you a wealthy multi millionaire. The question is: would you have had the resolute patience and emotional fortitude to see that value through? Would you have had the relentless stubbornness to focus on the bigger picture, even when markets made everyone around you lose their mind?

21/ Some answers, some more questions

The answer to question (a) lies in the path outlined above. I believe the megawave is right in front of us. Once we are ready, it will reveal itself fully.

The answer to question (b) lies within. The only way to lose is to accept defeat.

The answer to question (c) is more puzzling. You see, in hindsight everything looks like a simple, straight line. In reality, each of these companies was inches from dying, many many times. Each time, investors and contributors were tested and retested in many ways.

How many survived? How many retained their composure?

How many got to reap insane and outlandish rewards that were clearly possible?

22/ Very few. Surprisingly few. But why?

Perhaps because they were the ones ready to pay the price.
To double down when it mattered most.
To go to the ends of the earth–if that is what it took.

To believe.
To contribute.
To stay together.

23/ Few survived. Some reshaped the world. Their impact is still felt in society today.

This is our moment.
Our choices and actions will echo for years to come.

Let’s make them worth it.

24/ So how can you contribute today?

First, if you can—build. As much as you can.

Second, if you buy and stake EGLD you are an invaluable contributor.

Third, spread the word. Write, simplify, share the message. Add your insights, refine and improve the process.

These are the immediate actions that add up to massive impact.

/fin

P.S. Note at all details about the US expansion, Network Upgrade, Economics & Funding Upgrade, Interoperability and Lightspeed Chains, Narrative and North Star, and the Ecosystem Boom are preliminary ideas.

They are based on hundreds of discussions, feedback rounds with builders, the community, and friends.

If we want growth, these seem some of the strongest steps forward.

A separate post/thread and more thorough discussion will follow on each, during the next few weeks and months, once the ideas have reached a fully formed conclusion.

For each, we will be eager to hear your thoughts and feedback on how things can be further improved.

Harnessing these ideas – discussing, improving, and executing them – is how we change.

Will be doing a spaces conversation with DB on Friday evening.

Hearing some of your thoughts, translating some of the ideas, and thinking through some of the important next steps.