The Logic and Growth Journey of the Reverse Investment Movement

Recently, the Ethereum L2 Movement based on the Move language has sparked heated discussions. At the same time as it was launched on mainstream exchanges, its FDV once surpassed 10 billion USD. Investment firm Primitive Ventures shared its investment journey in Movement, with the founding partner of the firm participating in Movement's Series A funding.

Looking back at 2023, Primitive Ventures initially decided to abandon their investment in Movement, but this decision was ultimately overturned, prompting the team to reassess the project. Now, $MOVE has officially launched ------ this is a typical case of a non-consensus and reverse investment becoming the focus of the industry. Even more surprising is that all of this was created by two college dropouts. This article will delve into Primitive Ventures' investment decision-making process, as well as Movement's development over the past 20 months.

Initial Rejection

Initially, Movement was just a decentralized application based on Aptos, but after the Aptos ecosystem encountered difficulties, the team decided to shift to other platforms. The vision of Movement is to overcome the limitations of the Move ecosystem and establish a bridge connecting Move and EVM. However, at that time, the market was too niche and full of challenges, especially considering the limited resources of the team, which consisted of only two college dropouts.

Although Primitive Ventures has always supported alternative virtual machines and young entrepreneurs, it is hard to imagine how Movement can compete with the well-resourced Sui and Aptos. These two projects are well-funded and well-connected, hailed as the "aristocrats" of the Move ecosystem. In contrast, Movement's prospects seem bleak, which is why Primitive Ventures initially decided against investing.

The cryptocurrency industry has long favored the "superbrain" supremacy principle in infrastructure investment, focusing too much on minor technological advancements while neglecting the key human factors that ultimately drive success. This model is not new------Sayre's Third Political Law pointed out: "The reason academic politics is so malignant is that the stakes are too small." This perfectly explains the endless debates among "superbrain researchers" and the intense yet often counterproductive dynamics of intellectuals dominating projects.

However, after multiple in-depth discussions, a brand new perspective was proposed: a people-centered investment philosophy. The success of a project depends not only on the "super brains" group, but also on those who can transcend the technical echo chamber, unite the community, inspire developers, and build a sustainable ecosystem. As the industry matures, true entrepreneurs will increasingly be rewarded, rather than mere idealists and crypto geeks, which has begun to show signs in some projects of this cycle.

Adopting a new programming language, in addition to showcasing technological advantages, is more importantly about establishing a sense of identity among developers. This is not only a technological breakthrough, but also requires a clear distribution strategy that aligns with the identity of developers. More crucially, there must be charismatic leaders who can inspire the next generation of developers, especially those who transcend the traditional native crypto community, to embrace this language and its ecosystem.

This is precisely what makes Movement and Rushi unique. As an independent third party, Movement has the potential to fill this gap. Rushi's story as a founder showcases resilience, ambition, independence from established paths, and a spirit of relentless struggle, qualities that endow him with unique founder characteristics, making him a "dark horse" worth betting on. Viewed from this perspective, the team decided to firmly support Rushi, and the subsequent developments have indeed become a part of the history of the cryptocurrency industry.

Why choose the Move language?

There is indeed aesthetic fatigue in the market regarding infrastructure, but it is important to distinguish which efforts can drive the industry's prospects and which are merely minor optimizations. The industry often falls into a pseudo-intellectual debate about micro-optimizations, whereas the real power of blockchain lies in the continuous experimentation of human coordination and capital formation.

Currently, the security of smart contracts is one of the main obstacles hindering this experiment. The funds lost each year due to exploitation of vulnerabilities amount to billions of dollars, making the cost of maintaining on-chain security far higher than the benefits it brings, thereby hindering true mainstream adoption.

The Move programming language plays an important role here. It fundamentally rethinks how to write secure, modular, and verifiable smart contracts. In short, Move aims to provide developers and application builders with a fundamentally superior programming language. As detailed in the Movement Labs documentation, Move is designed to provide developers with a more secure and predictable development environment, greatly reducing the risk of catastrophic vulnerabilities.

Essentially, Move prioritizes correctness and safety in programming language design. This design results in an optimized development environment that protects both developers and users, while facilitating experimentation without exposing the community to continuous risks.

Thanks to the initial work of some projects------these projects were initiated by the engineers and architects who originally developed Move------Move now has a true record of practice. Existing projects have demonstrated that blockchain platforms based on Move can deliver strong performance and fulfill their promised security.

Why choose $MOVE?

Despite some progress in development based on Move, there are still gaps. Some projects with "noble lineage" have abundant resources but have not fully realized their potential in developer adoption. These protocols have received significant funding since 2023 but have failed to break through market cycles and gain real market appeal. Whether due to misaligned priorities or inefficiencies caused by inertia, their efforts have not made substantial breakthroughs in building grassroots communities and developer ecosystems.

As mentioned earlier, the adoption of a new programming language depends not only on its technical advantages but also on establishing a sense of identity among developers. With the resilience and execution demonstrated by the founding team, Movement Labs has become the ideal team to promote the Move language. In just 18 months, the Movement Labs team has made remarkable progress:

• 45 million US dollars in private placement funding
• 60 testnet operational applications
• Over 2000 hackathon participants
• $150 million TVL commitment
• 1 million active addresses
• 52 active Movement communities in different regions

Movement Labs envisions creating a safer and more scalable future for the crypto world, extending the advantages of the Move programming language to a broader crypto ecosystem.

• Ethereum L2 based on the Move language: This solution combines the security and efficiency of the Move language with the world's largest smart contract ecosystem ( Ethereum ), allowing developers to enjoy the advantages of both development environments.

• Fractal: Ethereum Virtual Machine ( EVM ) interpreter. To address developer experience and cross-chain integration, the Movement Labs team launched Fractal, allowing developers to convert Solidity codebases to a Move-based environment.

• Community-driven Participation: Recognizing that technology adoption relies on social norms, the Movement Labs team invested significant resources in developer education, community engagement, hackathons, and other grassroots activities. They did not impose a top-down vision but invited the community to participate together, creating an environment conducive to development.

Why choose Rushi?

The crypto market is gradually drifting away from its original cyberpunk spirit, becoming more and more like a game dominated by privileged classes and elites. At the core values of the Primitive Ventures team, there is always a commitment to the principle of "emphasizing substance over identity" ------ prioritizing meaningful growth potential rather than superficial lineage or background investments.

For many years, Primitive Ventures has supported anonymous founders and entrepreneurs in adversity, exposing the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed elites. This belief resonates deeply with us for those founders who lack resources but go further with resilience and perseverance.

Upholding the core spirit of the "Roman Empire", the Movement Labs team strives to build an ecosystem from the ground up------an inclusive, resilient, and meritocratic ecosystem. Just as ancient Rome was a city built by people from all walks of life------not only welcoming elites but also accepting outsiders, exiles, refugees, and those from lower social classes. Movement Labs is creating a home for these "homeless developers". Their strategy is to provide a supportive environment for talented developers who lack high-end resources or connections, ensuring that the drive for innovation comes from ability rather than privilege.

During this market cycle, we have seen a decisive shift among the founder community: those who deeply understand the global community and culture are becoming the dominant force------this is also an important reason for our investment in Movement and some other projects, and even the revival of certain projects benefits from collaboration between the East and the West. As second-generation Indian founders, Rushi and Smokey bring a fresh perspective, combining Eastern philosophy with Western technology and capital market expertise.

Their true qualities stand out particularly: humility, openness, rapid iteration, and a disinterest in politics or ranking games. For example, Rushi still lives in a small rental, promising to only do laundry properly after the "war" chaos of the Movement TGE( token generation event ) is over. This unadorned resilience embodies the spirit of the new generation of builders.

When the Movement testnet was launched, it faced widespread criticism due to its task design, with many users complaining about the heavy workload. The team's response was exemplary in transparency. Within 10 minutes of receiving feedback, Rushi initiated a live stream to directly address community concerns. Within an hour, he released a detailed written clarification to ensure that community members felt their voices were heard and valued.

We rarely encounter a team that responds to criticism so swiftly and remains grounded. Rushi's leadership is characterized by honesty and directness, qualities that stem from his background. He is very eager to interact with the community in real-time, participating in over 50 different sub-forums during meetings to understand grassroots sentiments and developers' dilemmas, inspiring many peers.

It is important to know that building an ecosystem requires a lot of coordination and trust, and Rushi, as a first-time founder, has excelled in establishing meaningful relationships. At the beginning of 2023, when a core contributor introduced Movement to Primitive Ventures, the team was impressed by Rushi's firm support. Despite a 20-year age difference between them, the pride in Rushi's growth was evident, which also proves Rushi's ability to establish deep trust across generations.

Some people may think that "community-driven" is mutually exclusive with raising millions of dollars through private placement funding. But is that really the case? The ultimate goal of private investors and the community is the same: the success of the project and its positive effects.

The essence of venture capital lies in supporting bold contrarian investments: backing ideas and founders when no one dares to take the risk. This is the true spirit of "risk" capital.

We agree with this viewpoint, although Primitive Ventures does not follow the typical venture capital playbook and does not rely on external capital like most venture capitalists do. Since Primitive Ventures is 100% self-funded, each investment is a true venture investment. This shared commitment connects us closely with early community members who also believe in the potential of the projects.

What people truly resent is not the venture capital investment itself, but the culture of cliques, a sense of privilege, family background games, as well as hypocrisy and politics. When projects prioritize fundraising milestones over actual results and genuine community involvement, and even openly belittle others as "electronic beggars," this deviation from the original spirit of crypto-punk and financial populism will ultimately lead to failure.

Under the leadership of Rushi and Coop, Movement Labs has proven that these forces can be aligned. By prioritizing transparency, humility, and execution, they have demonstrated how to build a sustainable project that is true to community values.

![Primitive Ventures: The Logic Behind Reverse Investment Movement and the Growth Secret of 10 Billion FDV](