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Cooper Scanlon, a visionary in the blockchain space and the driving force behind Movement Labs, is reshaping the future of decentralized technology. Under his leadership, Movement Labs has raised $38 million in Series A funding to bring Facebook’s Move Virtual Machine to Ethereum, addressing critical security challenges and enhancing blockchain scalability. Cooper’s dedication to fostering innovation was recently demonstrated in the "Battle of Olympus" hackathon, which drew over 2,100 global project submissions. Today, we dive deeper into Cooper’s journey, the success of Movement Labs, and the transformative potential of the Move ecosystem.
Q. Can you tell us a bit about your background and what initially drew you to the blockchain and Web3 space?
My journey into Web3 started during my time at Vanderbilt, where I was a lost student unsure of where I’d find solid footing. What first captivated me was the potential to revolutionize financial infrastructure through decentralization - there HAD to be a market for that. Furthermore, being so new, it meant I had a real chance at becoming a subject matter expert despite my youth. After working on several DeFi projects, I realized that existing blockchain architectures had fundamental limitations being entrenched in outdated programming languages like Solidity. But next-generation languages struggle to see adoption outside of Ethereum. This sparked the idea for Movement Labs with co-founder, Rushi Manche - creating a network that combines the security benefits of Move with Ethereum's network effects.
Q. What excites you the most about working with Move-based technology and leading such innovative initiatives at Movement Labs?
Move is a once in a generation opportunity to be a part of something game changing from the ground level. It’s something I’ve been searching for my whole life and it feels amazing to share it with others. It excites me to see how many college dropouts are building with us, such as the BRKT, Henry, and Vomeus teams. It’s also incredibly exciting to see our vision materialize through real numbers - we've already processed 635M testnet transactions and have 200+ teams actively building on Movement. Our community has also been over the moon with their Movedrop experience.
Q. Movement Labs recently raised $38 million in Series A funding. How will this funding help accelerate your vision for the Move Virtual Machine on Ethereum?
The Series A funding accelerated our development across three key areas: launch a successful Testnet and Mainnet Beta to support our growing ecosystem of 62+ launched apps, developer tooling enhancement, and community growth initiatives. It’s vindicating to see support from such high caliber partners such as Polychain, Binance, and OKX.
Q. The Move ecosystem has gained significant developer traction in recent months. Why do you think developers are moving towards Move over other programming languages like Solidity?
Move's resource-oriented programming model fundamentally changes how we build blockchain applications in a more intuitive and blockchain native way. Move is a derivative of Rust which has been lauded for its safety and modern use cases. Our ecosystem, which is designed for everyone to have a seat at the table and slice of the pie encourages developers and community members to participate in our network.
Q. Your focus on modular blockchains is unique in the industry. How does Movement Labs' modular architecture differentiate itself from other Layer-2 scaling solutions?
Our modular approach combines Move's security with Ethereum's liquidity and network effects. It’s one of the first real products demonstrating the application of the principles pioneered by giants such as Celestia. We stand on the shoulders of giants to bring next-generation smart contract programmability directly to Ethereum.
Q. The Battle of Olympus hackathon attracted over 2,100 project submissions globally. What factors do you believe contributed to such overwhelming developer interest?
The response reflects the growing recognition that Move is the future of smart contract development. With 62 apps launched on testnet and 14.9M active addresses, developers see Movement as the platform where innovation meets scalability. Our robust infrastructure and community-first approach, evidenced by our 840K+ engaged members, create an environment where builders can truly innovate in an environment everyone can be a part of. Many applications have started from scratch and quickly scaled to tens of thousands of community members by engaging with our community.
Q. Ten standout projects were showcased across categories like DeFi, SocialFi, AI, and GameFi. Which of these categories do you think will drive the next phase of growth for the Movement ecosystem, and why?
DeFi will be our primary growth driver, leveraging our EVM compatibility and Move's security features. The projects we're seeing built on Movement are reimagining core DeFi primitives with unprecedented security guarantees. Our infrastructure is specifically optimized for DeFi applications, and we're seeing tremendous innovation in areas like composable lending and structured products. This will create a strong foundation for AI and consumer applications to bootstrap from.
Q. You’re offering winners grants, mentorship, and access to accelerator programs. How do you plan to support these projects as they integrate into the Movement Network in the long term?
Mainnet Beta represents production-grade infrastructure in a managed environment. Unlike testnet, we're running real production nodes processing actual transactions with provenance guarantees. The focus is on validating network performance, security, and stability as we expand ecosystem capabilities.
Our Move Collective program spearheads long-term developer support, offering comprehensive resources that have already helped partners secure over $13.2M in seed funding. With 40% of tokens allocated to ecosystem development, we're providing sustained support through grants, technical documentation, and infrastructure optimization. Every project has open access to our one of a kind community.
Q. Security remains a critical challenge in blockchain development. How does the Move programming language address vulnerabilities and improve blockchain safety compared to existing technologies?
Move fundamentally changes the game for blockchain security through its resource-oriented model. The language enforces strict rules around how assets are created and transferred, making it difficult to create vulnerable contracts. Formal verification provides an additional layer of protection by scanning contracts in execution. While no technology is bulletproof, our methodical approach of building comprehensive testing frameworks first, combined with Move's inherent security features, creates an environment where developers can innovate confidently and not have to worry about re-entrancy attacks.
Q. Interoperability between ecosystems is a major focus in Web3. How does Movement Labs plan to bridge the gap between Move and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-based ecosystems?
Modular design enables Movement to be both Move and Ethereum. By running natively on top of Ethereum our applications benefit from full access to the vibrant Ethereum ecosystem of apps, liquidity, and users while also greatly increasing biodiversity and security of the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole.
Q. Your mainnet launch is highly anticipated. What milestones should the community look forward to as Movement Labs approaches this launch?
We achieved several recent milestones in our journey last month: The $MOVE Token Generation Event, Mainnet Beta, our MoveDrop distribution, and our first-ever Movement NFT competition.
The commemorative NFT initiative exemplifies our community-first approach. Artists submitted designs via Twitter. The community voted to select winners, with $1,000 prizes for the top 3 submissions. The winning design became our official commemorative NFT, marking this historic milestone.
On the technical side, Mainnet Beta represents production-grade infrastructure running real nodes and transactions. We're taking a methodical approach here - validating security and performance before expanding ecosystem capabilities.
This phased launch sequence ensures we're building sustainably while keeping our community, at the center of Movement's evolution.
Q. What’s your long-term vision for Movement Labs? How do you see Move-based blockchains reshaping the decentralized application landscape over the next few years?
We're building something fundamentally different - the first Move-based blockchain settling to Ethereum. Our approach combines Move's superior security with Ethereum's network effects, delivering high TPS and near-instant finality.
Three key differentiators stand out:
- First, infrastructure. We've prioritized building rock-solid technology before ecosystem expansion.
- Second, security. Move's resource-oriented model provides inherent protections. We've also built comprehensive testing frameworks to ensure our foundation is stable.
- Third, community focus. Our MoveDrop recognizes genuine engagement, and has made a meaningful difference in the lives of our core community and developer base.
