Austin Federa Leaves Solana to Co-Found DoubleZero, a High-Performance Network for Blockchain and Beyond

Austin Federa, former Strategy Lead at the Solana Foundation, has announced his departure after four years to co-found DoubleZero, a groundbreaking project focused on managing high-performance, permissionless networks. In a heartfelt statement shared on X (formerly Twitter) on December 4, Federa described leaving Solana as one of the most difficult professional decisions of his career but emphasized his excitement for the next step, which will allow him to continue contributing to the Solana ecosystem “from the other side.”

DoubleZero isn’t just another Layer 1 or Layer 2 protocol; it’s a new global base layer network (N1) that aims to optimize blockchain infrastructure by increasing bandwidth and reducing latency. Federa, who co-founded DoubleZero alongside Andrew McConnell and Mateo Ward, explained that the project’s goal is to support tens of millions of transactions per second, significantly improving blockchain performance and scalability.

“We’re starting with Solana, but DoubleZero is neutral base layer infrastructure – and N1 – a foundation for all high-performance blockchains,” said Federa. The new network is designed to be permissionless, leveraging dedicated fiber and subsea cables from independent contributors to support a decentralized, high-performance ecosystem.

Key Innovations in DoubleZero’s Design

The project’s white paper, released on December 2, outlines two major improvements DoubleZero offers to the blockchain world:

Efficient Outbound Messaging:

DoubleZero allows outbound messages to be routed, tracked, and prioritized, improving efficiency and ensuring better use of the network’s bandwidth.

Spam and Duplicate Filtering:

One of the key challenges for high-performance networks is ensuring that spam transactions and duplicates don’t bog down the system. DoubleZero addresses this with specialized hardware that filters inbound transactions before they reach the network. This task is performed via a shared system-wide filtration rather than relying on individual validators to handle it.

Additionally, the network provides verification services to ensure data integrity by performing signature verification using open-source code. This architecture is designed to ensure that Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchains can scale without facing communication bottlenecks, making the entire blockchain ecosystem more efficient.

The main challenge DoubleZero aims to tackle is global, base-layer connectivity—a core issue both for the internet and high-performance blockchain networks. Federa envisions a network that not only increases bandwidth and reduces latency but also improves decentralization and censorship resistance.

“The goal is simple: increase bandwidth and reduce latency while increasing decentralization and censorship resistance to unlock today’s high-performance blockchains and enable entirely new types of network architectures to be built,” said Federa. By creating this foundational layer, DoubleZero hopes to enable new possibilities for decentralized applications and networks.

DoubleZero’s Impact Beyond Blockchain

While DoubleZero was initially conceived for blockchain projects, its potential applications extend far beyond the cryptocurrency space. The white paper suggests several industries where DoubleZero’s high-performance infrastructure could have a significant impact, including:

Online Gaming:

In online gaming, where mild lags can disrupt the user experience, DoubleZero’s low-latency network could ensure smooth, real-time communication between players.

Large Language Model Training:

The project also sees potential in AI and machine learning, specifically in the training of large language models. DoubleZero could provide a high-bandwidth connection between data centers, facilitating faster and more efficient model training.

DoubleZero is entering the market with a strong team of core contributors and collaborators. The project’s two initial contributor teams, Firedancer and Malbec Labs, will help drive development and provide crucial expertise in building the network’s infrastructure.

A Bright Future for DoubleZero

DoubleZero is positioned to push the boundaries of what’s possible in terms of high-performance blockchain infrastructure, offering a solution that could support everything from global-scale decentralized networks to gaming and AI applications. With Austin Federa at the helm and a solid team of crypto entrepreneurs behind it, DoubleZero aims to become a cornerstone of the next wave of blockchain and distributed network innovation.

Austin Federa’s departure from the Solana Foundation marks the beginning of an exciting new venture in the form of DoubleZero, a next-generation network designed to address the fundamental challenges facing high-performance blockchains and distributed systems. By focusing on bandwidth, latency, decentralization, and censorship resistance, DoubleZero aims to provide a neutral, permissionless base layer for all blockchain projects. As it prepares to disrupt industries beyond just crypto, DoubleZero has the potential to reshape the way we think about high-performance networks across the globe.