The Protocol: Movement Labs Rolls Out Dev Mainnet, Cardano Hard Forks to Decentralized Governance

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development.

The Protocol is CoinDesk’s weekly round-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. This week, Movement Labs deploys a dev mainnet, Cardano hard forks to decentralized governance, SSV DAO unveils SSC 2.0, Musk pushes blockchain in government and more.

Movement Labs Deploys Dev Mainnet for Ethereum Layer 2 Move Integration

Blockchain firm Movement Labs has deployed a developer mainnet to advance its goal of bringing Meta’s Move Virtual Machine (MoveVM) to Ethereum.

The launch of the developer mainnet will begin the deployment of Movement’s core infrastructure and allow selected partners to start implementing decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, according to an emailed announcement on Tuesday.

The release follows the initial mainnet launch of Movement in December and precedes the planned public mainnet beta release next month.

Move was developed as a part of Facebook’s ill-fated digital currency project Diem, which was shelved at the start of 2022. The technology was also used to create the Sui and Aptos layer-1 networks.

Movement Labs, with the help of a $38 million Series A funding round led by Polychain Capital, is extending the programming language to an Ethereum layer 2 for the first time.

Coinciding with the public mainnet’s deployment, Movement will also unveil a multi-asset liquidity program to provide the foundation for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

Cardano Hard Forks to Decentralized Governance With Plomin Upgrade

Proof-of-stake blockchain Cardano was set to switch to decentralized governance Jan. 29 after the Plomin hard fork takes effect, a non-profit organization backing the project said on X.

“The Plomin hard fork takes effect, marking the transition to full decentralized governance. ADA holders gain real voting power – on parameter changes, treasury withdrawals, hard forks, and the blockchain’s future,” Cardano Foundation said.

“[It's] A milestone in blockchain governance.”

Cardano’s ADA token changed hands at 93 cents at press time, up 1.4% on the day, according to data from CoinDesk and TradingView.

A hard fork is a non-backwards compatible change to the blockchain’s programming. The Plomin hard fork needs Stake Pool Operators to upgrade their nodes and approve the upgrade with a 51% vote.

As of last week, nearly 80% of nodes had upgraded to the new version.

SSV DAO Unveils Framework for ‘Based’ Applications on Ethereum

The SSV DAO, the decentralized autonomous organization behind the decentralized staking protocol SSV Network, unveiled a new framework, called “SSV 2.0,” allowing applications to make use of “based” technology by leveraging Ethereum validators.

SSV 2.0 will be the most ambitious project for the SSV Network, according to a press release shared with CoinDesk, and will bring based applications (bApps) to Ethereum.

“Based” applications, especially “based rollups,” are a new type of technology attracting the attention of Ethereum developers as it allows for better interoperability while improving the security of networks on top of Ethereum.

Based rollups specifically can be seen as a solution to the many layer-2 networks on Ethereum today, which have caused much fragmentation across the space.

By leveraging “based” technology, those protocols or applications can “base” their security and execution operations off of Ethereum’s layer-1 validator set.

Currently, layer-2 networks use “sequencers” to order transactions and post those back to Ethereum. Sequencers are criticized for being single points of failure. By using layer-1 validators to do the execution and security work, networks can avoid the downfalls of using centralized sequencers.

Ethereum developers agree that based rollups allow for better interoperability in the network. Ethereum ecosystem members have gathered over the last few weeks to find ways to solve this issue, and based rollups are seen as a major breakthrough for that.

Now the SSV Network will also tackle these issues by bringing applications with based technology to Ethereum.

Musk Pushes Blockchain Integration in Gov Department Named After Dogecoin

In his role leading the new Department for Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.), Elon Musk has suggested that using a digital ledger would be a cost-efficient way to track federal spending, secure data, make payments and manage buildings, according to people familiar with the matter.

Several representatives of public blockchains have met with affiliates of D.O.G.E., the people said.

The department was created in response to the federal government’s spending of $6.7 trillion in fiscal 2024, which Musk in October called “wasted” money.

He promised the department — whose acronym is a nod to Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency, dogecoin (DOGE-USD) — would slash the figure to at most $2 trillion.

Given the department’s name and Trump’