Movement Labs joins Polygon's AggLayer; testnet launch attracts $160 million in committed TVL

San Francisco-based blockchain development firm Movement Labs has joined Polygon’s AggLayer for Ethereum Layer 2s, coinciding with Movement’s public testnet launch.

AggLayer is an interoperability layer currently under development by Polygon Labs designed to facilitate unified liquidity and security across the Polygon 2.0 network of Layer 2 chains. AggLayer helps link these chains and settle ZK-based security proofs back on Ethereum to secure them at once, simplifying the process of converting or securely transferring native Ethereum assets from one chain to another.

Movement is the first Move-based ecosystem to utilize the AggLayer and help bridge the gap between the Move and EVM ecosystems, the project said on Tuesday in a statement shared with The Block. It enables Ethereum developers to deploy Solidity contracts on Move-based chains without code modification.

Bringing Facebook’s Move Virtual Machine to Ethereum

In April, Movement Labs announced it had raised a $38 million Series A round led by Polychain Capital to bring Facebook’s Move Virtual Machine to Ethereum, with additional funding secured from Binance Labs.

Movement’s Layer 2 would expand the usage of the Move programming language beyond the well-known Aptos and Sui Layer 1 blockchains. Movement aims to build an ecosystem of modular Move-based blockchains, starting with “M2” — a Move Virtual Machine Layer 2 for Ethereum. Move was originally developed at Meta by a team composed of people from Facebook’s now-defunct Diem stablecoin project.

"Our platform addresses a critical need in the Web3 ecosystem," Movement Labs co-founder Rushi Manche said. "Developers no longer have to choose between the trusted Ethereum environment and the security of alternative L1s. Movement offers the best of both worlds — the familiarity of an Ethereum L2 with the enhanced security and performance of the Move language. This allows projects to deploy with confidence, knowing they're protected against common vulnerabilities while still leveraging the economic strength of the Ethereum ecosystem."

AggLayer would serve as the unifying liquidity layer for these MoveVM-based chains, other “AggChains” and Ethereum, the team noted, helping to address blockchain fragmentation. The infrastructure will also utilize Celestia's data availability layer for cost-effective and high-throughput off-chain data storage while maintaining Ethereum's security guarantees, it added.

Multiple projects, such as OKX’s X Layer , Immutable , Astar , Canto, Palm Network , Aavegotchi , IDEX , Nubank and Manta Network, are also using or plan to use the Polygon CDK to develop their Layer 2 networks and connect to the AggLayer, alongside Polygon’s own PoS chain.

Movements’ public testnet launch

Movements’ integration with Polygon’s AggLayer coincides with the launch of its public testnet, Parthenon. Movement Labs claims the testnet has already attracted $160 million in committed total value locked (deposits) ahead of its mainnet deployment, scheduled for later this year.

Solv Protocol, a decentralized bitcoin reserve, has pledged $100 million in TVL on Movement, while existing Movement Labs investors, including 280 Capital, have committed an additional $60 million, the team said. 

Six web3 projects have deployed on the Movement testnet so far, including money market Echelon, lending platform Moveposition, liquidity marketplace Meridian, perpetual protocol Avitus, prediction market BRKT and on-chain game Infinite Seas.