As Blockchain ecosystems mature, the speed and efficiency of infrastructure for nodes have become more than technical considerations, they are strategic imperatives. Leading the load in this space is Austin Federa, former head of Strategy of the Solana Foundation, who is preparing to launch Doublezero, a protocol designed to redefine how they communicate and blockchains scale.
In a wide conversation with Coindesk, Federa deepened the motivations behind Doublezero, the challenges he addresses and that can leave him, and why his vision for a high -performance network layer could be the basis for the next generation of decentralized systems.
Doublero was announced for the first time in December 2024 as a layer of blockchain aimed at being faster than the Internet and, therefore, is crucial for cryptography shops. Since then, almost 12.57% of Sol Stadkek is operating on the fold network. Mainnet launch is expected to occur at some time in September.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
COINDESK: Explain how Doublezero works to someone who is new in Crypto.
Austin Federa: I think one of the easiest ways to explain what we are building is that we are building the Flash Boys’ version of Crypto.
That was really this moment of transformation in which people realized that their advantage in the execution in a centralized commercial place was no longer its real commercial logic or the speed of the computer that has connected to the market, it is the rapid thing that can obtain data between different points where market events occur. That was a really great change in the industry, because the transit time was not [previously] considered terribly important.
You can return and see Formula 1 races since the 80s, they are just taking a break for the cigarette during a boxing stop, and then someone realized “Oh man, we are actually leaving a long time on the track through these boxes of boxes are not optimized.” And it really is quite similar in the commercial space.
So, for Crypto, the idea of using something that is faster than the internet public (which can use a network in which you can use technologies that are not available on public Internet)It is not necessarily a new idea. The problem was that, until Doublezero appeared, it should have been administered by a centralized company and not allow multiple independent taxpayers.
The main technology, the philosophy and economic unlocking of the Doublezero protocol is that it allows multiple taxpayers who have their own fiber networks to contribute portions or all that fiber network to the Doublezero network. Build a giant and extremely high fiber mesh network that connects people worldwide.
COINDESK: Why build for Solana?
Federa: We are not really built in Solana. We have a separate accounting system, but it is not a network to which anyone implements an intelligent contract, it really is only an accounting database.
The reason we are first supporting Solana … It is because Solana is quite unique. If you observe fast blockchains, and then observe the nodes count, there is a transaction ratio per second to the number of nodes, no one approaches Solana.
Any network that is near the yield of Solana has a 1/5 to 1/10 of the number of real nodes. And so, the communications problem is an exponential problem. The more nodes have in the system and the more places you will need to make data, the wider bandwoman will need, the more communication becomes a bottleneck.
Therefore, the larger and faster obtain a blockchain network, the more communication it becomes a bottleneck so that this network moves quickly. So, the real objective behind what we are doing is allowing Blockchains to go faster than the public internet, without having to drop the nodes or add centralization.
We believe that Doublezero has many more applications than only Solana and many more applications than only Blockchain. But it is the place where there is the greatest need at this time. You look at the other block chains, and they still don’t have these problems.
COINDESK: How do you tie in Solana with Doublezero?
Federa: We have a stake pool that is rethinking the nodes in Doublezero. As a percentage of the stake, it is quite small, are around 3 million sun, (There are 500 million sun)So it is not a lot of sun. Originally, that was conceived as a way to help subsidize the cost of the validators that are executed in our Testnet, but it turned out that people were very interested in executing Testnet, so that has been a really good tool to get more people on board with the network.
When we launch Mainnet data in September, that will be more than 50 different fiber links at this time. It is currently at eight. Many of the links will be 10 times faster than the connections we have today in terms of their capacity. Then, from 10 gigabit to 200 Gigabit connections.
We see a future in which, when obtaining enough stake that operates in the Doublezero network, protocols designers in Solana can now increase the limits much higher than they can on the public internet, because more capacity is offered in Doublezero than is available for validators that operate in the internet public today, and is a lower latency connection. So, data transmission actually, not only can you send more data, but that data arrives faster than it would be otherwise.
COINDESK: So, in your world there are two scenarios here: you have a public internet, or you have something like a Doublezero. If you want to do something faster, faster or other benefits for your trade, follow the Doublezero route. Does that create a performance inequality among validators in Solana?
Federa: We get a version of this [question] a lot. And the question to be asked is, is the Internet a centralizing force? The Internet is basically only 20 companies that have most connectivity. And today, if all OECD countries suddenly said: “No more cryptography,” basically everything except Bitcoin is hose.
So, when we are honest about what we are feeling here, the importance is not to get rid of the Internet completely. It is to ensure that the Internet is there as a support, as a route of resistance to censorship. And so, if Doublezero is offline, or if there is a bad actor in the Doublezero network that decides to try to censor the blocks or something together with the censored data that move through it, two things will happen:
One, that is why we have nine independent collaborators on the network, so the data will only be enrved around them, and basically we can kick a taxpayer outside the network. And the second thing is that we always have a public internet to resort. Now, that may require Solana to fall from 500,000 transactions per second to 10,000 transactions per second. But that is not a poor state of failures.
That is his classic: “There is a traffic jam on the road, I will take the county road at this time.”
COINDESK: Then, Mainnet will come very soon. What is happening between now and then?
Federa: There are many tests, it is a lot to make sure that we are completely ready to start. And then it is obviously a Token -based project. Therefore, there is a launch of tokens that also accompanies him, also in September.
Read more: ‘New Internet’ by Doublezero for Blockchains Nabs Valuation of $ 400 million of the best cryptographic VC
