The power of decentralized systems is becoming undeniable. Bitcoin is proving the value of decentralized money. Stablecoins are putting hundreds of billions of digital dollars onchain. Decentralized exchanges are processing billions in daily volume.
But for all this momentum, the new economic system that we were promised has yet to arrive in a meaningful way. Ten years on from the launch of Ethereum, programmable blockchains are still ill-equipped to serve as a foundation for anything other than a handful of niche apps. Billions of dollars have flowed into “next-generation” blockchains, yet the usage statistics of even the largest onchain apps remain a rounding error compared to any moderately successful consumer internet platform.
What’s the root cause of this failure? Some would argue that we just need more and better apps. Others would argue that we need new regulatory frameworks. But these concerns are only part of the story. If the frictionless global economy is ever to become a reality, we will need a new class of foundational infrastructure that addresses the underlying problems of existing programmable blockchains.
Enter Final.
Final exists to power a future in which the world’s value flows freely, securely, and efficiently. As the first adaptive blockchain network, Final marks the beginning of a new era of open financial infrastructure where network dynamism is the most important characteristic. Final represents a fundamental rethink of how blockchain infrastructure works, comparable to how the centralized web shifted from physical servers to elastic cloud computing in the 2000s and 2010s — a shift that unlocked wider adoption by enabling the vastly improved performance and specialization that we still benefit from today.
Final’s approach can be best understood through three lenses: technology, economics, and ethos.
Technology: Adaptive High-Performance
To power the frictionless global economy, programmable blockchains will need to deliver experiences that rival those afforded by modern, elastic computing. No existing blockchain comes close. Two broad properties of elastic, programmable infrastructure set it apart from existing programmable blockchains.
First, elastic infrastructure enables specialization. This empowers apps to adopt the precise infrastructure necessary for achieving optimal performance in the context of their target use cases — whether for payments, derivatives, or non-financial use cases. By ensuring every app’s unique networking, computation, and storage needs are met precisely and continuously, such specialized environments enable better user experiences, optimized costs, and greater business model flexibility. By contrast, existing blockchains are generally one-size-fits-all, and fail to provide apps with the specialization or configuration-flexibility that enables use case-optimal performance.
Second, elastic infrastructure is inherently adaptive. Elastic cloud platforms automate their operations with systems for self-configuration, self-scaling, and self-optimization. Continuous adaptation allows these platforms to intelligently match demand with supply, rapidly deploy changes, minimize downtime, and proactively address performance issues, all resulting in greater efficiency, increased capacity, and faster time-to-market for apps. By contrast, existing blockchains adopt static, rigid designs that fail to dynamically respond to changing network conditions and evolving app needs.
Final is designed to deliver the specialization and adaptivity necessary for making cloud-like performance and efficiencies a reality in a decentralized setting. These key properties are realized through Final’s novel, integrated multi-layered architecture:
- Base Layer — Main Chain: The Main Chain (mChain) serves as Final’s security and settlement layer. It employs a custom virtual machine and is operated by a diverse set of validators who reach consensus using FinalBFT, a consensus protocol based on the highly-performant HotStuff protocol. The mChain ensures decentralization and provides users with universal trust guarantees across the Final network. All apps running on Final rely on the mChain for ultimate settlement and finality.
- Application Layer — Ephemeral Chains: A multitude of specialized blockchains called Ephemeral Chains (eChains) collectively serve as Final’s application layer. Each eChain employs fine-tuned configurations in terms of performance, execution environments, privacy models, transaction models, fee structures, and other properties. The result is a diverse array of app-hosting environments that collectively address the needs of wide-ranging use cases efficiently and with optimal performance. All eChains leverage services provided by the mChain, as directed by the oChain, forming part of Final’s single, cohesive network and avoiding the fragmentation pitfalls commonly associated with multi-chain network architectures.
- Adaptation Layer — Optimization Chain: The Optimization Chain (oChain) serves as Final’s central nervous system. It continuously evolves the network to ensure every app has exactly the services and computing resources it needs to achieve optimal performance for its use case. Just as centralized elastic infrastructure scales up or down based on app needs, the oChain automates Final’s operations in real-time by monitoring network conditions, identifying bottlenecks, and intelligently allocating operator resources to resolve performance issues before they affect users. These optimizations are driven by the continuous execution of a multiobjective model that maximizes the utility provided by the network while continuously balancing the needs of apps, operators, and the network itself.
Through this novel architecture, Final delivers a specialized and adaptive foundation that enables apps to access the right infrastructure at the right time based on their exact requirements. Final empowers app developers to harness performance and specialization rivaling that afforded by modern, elastic cloud infrastructure.
Economics: Embedded Value Drivers
The economic models employed by existing programmable blockchains are fundamentally broken. Their tokens rely on the demand for one-size-fits-all computation — a commoditized service with limited pricing power. These tokens have generally struggled to hold lasting value and instead rely on speculative premia as the primary source of growth. While token burn mechanisms create scarcity, the burn mechanisms alone are not sufficient to address the root problem.
Final introduces a new economic model that promotes long-term economic dynamism and growth. This approach is defined by two key pillars:
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Differentiated Computation: Final’s economy is driven by the demand for specialized computation rather than a one-size-fits-all commodity. By supporting varied transaction space and catering to the unique requirements of each app, Final expands the network’s addressable market and unlocks pricing power in a way that existing programmable blockchains cannot. In addition to being used to remunerate validators and other infrastructure operators, a portion of all fees is allotted back to the network for subsequent use in value-accretive activities, including burn mechanisms.
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Core Facilities: Final’s economy benefits from independent value flows that originate from its Core Facilities. These facilities provide network participants with essential services delivered as Core Apps and Core eChains, all of which are native to the protocol and permissionless. Core Facilities will evolve to include:
- Exchange facilities for derivatives and spot trading
- Stablecoin facilities for stablecoin issuance and payments
- Lending facilities for issuing and receiving loans
- And facilities for other essential financial primitives
The revenue generated by these Core Facilities flows directly into the network to fund buyback mechanisms and other economically additive activities.
Together, these pillars underpin an economic model focused on dynamism and long-term growth. By combining the pricing power of specialized computation with independent revenue streams from Core Facilities, Final’s economic model bolsters the robustness of its economy and provides clear mechanisms for building lasting value.
Ethos: Credible Neutrality
Modern blockchains typically launch with critical technical and financial dependencies. Regardless of whether they are forks of existing blockchains or not, most are reliant on third-party development teams for primary wallets, explorers, and other tooling, often in the form of single-source and closed-source services. At the same time, the widespread reliance on institutional capital leads to a fundamental misalignment of interests between institutional backers and project communities.
All of this stands in stark contrast to the most successful networks. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum were developed from the ground-up — not as forks but as foundational contributions to the state-of-the-art in decentralized systems. Their early development efforts were funded by their core contributors or communities, leading to a natural alignment of interests. Ultimately, strongly-held community beliefs powered these networks to the point of reaching escape velocity.
Final represents a direct return to the principles of what made the earliest networks so powerful. The Final ethos is shaped by two key pillars:
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Full-Stack Sovereignty. Final has been developed from scratch and with an accompanying set of utilities purpose-built for the network (e.g., Final Wallet, Final Explorer, Final Bridge). This approach helps to ensure the network's continued technical independence and sovereignty. Although Final holds credible neutrality to be one of its most important properties, widespread institutional adoption should be encouraged as a means for bolstering the network's growth, but only after a strong community foundation is in place.
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Community Leadership. By virtue of Final’s development efforts thus far being executed without any reliance on institutional capital, the core contributors’ interests are naturally aligned with those of the broader Final community. By empowering community contributions at every level, Final aims to cultivate an environment where the network’s future is shaped by the collective will and efforts of its community, including its core contributors. While many projects claim to put “community first”, Final is fundamentally community-aligned and directed.
Final’s ethos embodies a return to the core principles: that of a truly sovereign network, free from closed-source technical dependencies and institutional influence.
Building Final: Get Involved
The initial implementation of Final has been designed and developed by core contributors with expertise in distributed systems, cryptography, mechanism design, and quantitative finance. Our backgrounds range from elite cyber units and algorithmic trading systems, to computer science PhDs and postdocs.
But despite our wide-ranging backgrounds, nationalities, and worldviews, we are united around one vision: delivering the foundational infrastructure that will power the frictionless global economy and enable the world’s value to flow freely, securely, and efficiently.
If this vision resonates with you, get involved and help make Final the catalyst.
