Key Insights
- Fogo is a Layer-1 blockchain built on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), designed to support institutional-grade onchain finance.
- Fogo launched its testnet on March 31, 2025, following a devnet rollout in January; the testnet includes a public Explorer and a Fogo Flames Points Program
- It introduces specific architectural tradeoffs to maximize throughput and minimize latency: (i) a single canonical client (Firedancer) to eliminate performance bottlenecks caused by client diversity, (ii) multi-local consensus with dynamic validator co-location to reduce network latency while maintaining fallback to global consensus, and (iii) a curated validator set.
- The network integrates with Ambient Finance to support built-in decentralized exchange (DEX) functionality.
Primer
Fogo is a Layer-1 blockchain built on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), designed to support institutional-grade onchain finance. Its goal is to bring traditional financial performance standards to blockchain infrastructure by making targeted technical tradeoffs. These include (i) running a single high-speed Firedancer client, (ii) coordinating validator location through a dynamic co-location model (multi-local consensus), and (iii) maintaining a curated validator set to ensure consistent throughput. As an SVM blockchain, Fogo retains compatibility with the broader Solana ecosystem, allowing developers to migrate existing programs and tools with minimal changes.
The core contributors behind Fogo are from Douro Labs, the same team contributing to Pyth, a widely-used financial oracle. The network has already integrated an onchain DEX via Ambient Finance. Furthermore, it launched its devnet in January 2025, followed up with a curated testnet on March 31, 2025, marking the start of broader testing and validation across institutions and developers.
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What is Fogo?
Current blockchain networks face throughput limitations that make them unsuitable for global financial activity. To put this into perspective, traditional centralized systems (e.g., NASDAQ, CME, and Eurex) regularly process 100,000+ operations per second with millisecond or sub-millisecond latencies. Yet, most optimized blockchains typically handle 1,000-5,000 transactions per second (TPS) in production environments, facing throughput limitations due to client diversity and network coordination challenges.
Fogo is a Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) Layer-1 blockchain built for institutional-grade onchain finance by marrying traditional finance performance standards with selectively decentralized infrastructure. As an SVM blockchain, Fogo maintains compatibility with Solana’s execution and consensus layers, allowing easy migration of existing Solana programs, tooling, and infrastructure.
These design tradeoffs enable higher theoretical performance and lower latency. The current timeline includes a January 2025 devnet launch, followed by a curated testnet rollout on March 31. This phase introduced the Fogo Explorer for live network tracking and the Flames Points Program to incentivize early user and community engagement.
Unique Technological Design
Fogo achieved a TPS of ~46,000 and block times of ~20ms in devnet, though testnet data to date shows block times averaging closer to 40ms. It achieves this through various technological tradeoffs and enhancements, including (i) implementation of the Firedancer client, (ii) multi-local consensus and colocation, and (iii) a curated validator set.
Unified Firedancer Client
Unlike other blockchain networks that encourage client diversity, Fogo is designed around a single canonical client: pure Firedancer, developed by Jump Crypto. This design achieves performance levels that are otherwise unreachable in networks constrained by the speed of their slowest client. Specifically, Fogo will launch using Frankendancer, a hybrid Firedancer implementation, before transitioning to the full Firedancer stack once it’s production-ready.
Furthermore, while validators are technically free to run any compatible client, Fogo introduces economic incentives that favor the fastest implementation. Because the network’s dynamic block times and size parameters reward throughput and penalize lag, slower clients risk consistent underperformance, missed blocks, and reduced revenue. Rather than enforcing client usage at the protocol level, Fogo relies on validator self-interest to drive convergence toward Firedancer.
Multi-Local Consensus with Dynamic Colocation
Fogo – inspired by the “follow the sun” model used in global financial markets – uses a system where validators group together in the same location to run faster, but can still spread out across different regions for safety when needed. For example, moving from Asia to Europe to North America as trading activity follows the global clock. This is all made possible by two main systems:
- Two-tier key system: Each validator has (i) a global key for identity, governance, and stake management and (ii) separate zone-specific keys for participating in consensus within a given location.
- Zone keys are registered onchain and rotate at epoch boundaries, allowing validators to move securely between zones without losing their long-term identity.
- This limits the risk of exposing global keys – which control a validator’s authority over stake and governance – during day-to-day operations (e.g., setting up new infrastructure, transitioning between data centers, etc.). If compromised, an attacker could impersonate the validator, redirect stake, or influence network decisions.
- Onchain governance: New zones are proposed and activated through a stake-weighted voting process using global keys. A mandatory delay period gives validators time to prepare secure infrastructure, test connections, and audit the new zone before it becomes active.
For each epoch, validators vote on the upcoming zone and performance parameters. If they do not reach quorum in time, or if the active zone fails mid-epoch, the network automatically returns to a global consensus mode with more conservative settings to ensure continuity. This fallback mechanism maintains network stability while allowing for optimized performance during normal operations.
Curated Validator Set
Lastly, Fogo uses a curated validator set of 19-30 approved validators to reduce harmful MEV behavior and keep the network running efficiently. Fogo limits participation to validators with sufficient infrastructure and delegated stake, as even a small number of underpowered nodes can slow down the entire network.
To join or leave the validator set, Fogo initially relies on a genesis authority (i.e., a temporary group or entity responsible for bootstrapping the network and managing validator membership during the early stages). Once the network stabilizes, control will shift to the validators themselves, with changes requiring a two-thirds majority of staked tokens. To prevent sudden shifts that could affect performance or governance, the protocol limits how many validators can be added or removed within a given period. Eventually, validators are expected to hold each other accountable.
Those who (i) underperform, (ii) extract abusive MEV, or (iii) disrupt the network can be removed through a collective decision, not only through protocol-level enforcement but by validator consensus. This helps maintain network integrity without compromising the decentralization model.
Fogo Testnet
The Fogo testnet was released on March 31, 2025. During this initial phase, access is limited to selected developers and institutions. The purpose is to evaluate network stability, latency, and throughput benchmarks in a controlled setting before a broader rollout.
Testnet Explorer
Alongside testnet, Fogo released a testnet explorer on April 11, 2025. It displays real-time validator performance, slot times, and throughput metrics, allowing early participants to monitor block production and network responsiveness.
Fogo Flames Program
Launched on March 13, 2025, the Fogo Flames Program tracks user contributions across infrastructure, trading, and community channels. Participants earn points (i.e., “Flames”) by (i) staking PYTH, Pyth Network’s token, via Oracle Integrity Staking, (ii) trading or providing liquidity on Ambient Finance, (iii) holding roles in the Fogo Discord, or (iv) engaging with content on X. Scores are updated weekly and are displayed on a public leaderboard.
Closing Summary
Fogo is a high-performance SVM Layer-1 blockchain designed to meet the demands of institutional-grade onchain finance. It does so by (i) running a single canonical Firedancer client, (ii) coordinating validator location through multi-local consensus, and (iii) maintaining a curated validator set to ensure consistent performance. These tradeoffs allow the network to achieve higher throughput and lower latency while retaining compatibility with the Solana ecosystem.
The permissioned testnet, launched on March 31, 2025, following a devnet release in January, is the next step in evaluating Fogo’s architecture under actual conditions. Participants can monitor performance metrics via the public Explorer and begin engaging with the ecosystem through the Flames Points Program.
