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About Optimum
Optimum is a high-performance in-memory infrastructure layer for any blockchain, focused on accelerating block and message propagation through a lightweight sidecar called mump2p. Its core innovation is RLNC (Random Linear Network Coding), which allows nodes to forward partially received data instead of waiting for complete blocks, significantly reducing latency and bandwidth consumption.
Main pain points it addresses: existing gossip protocols like Gossipsub are inefficient under load—they cause high propagation delays, redundant data transmission, and wasted bandwidth, especially for large blocks or busy networks. This directly impacts validator performance, including missed attestations and lower rewards.
Over the past six months (March–September 2026), Optimum has been running on the Hoodi testnet with participation from major node operators such as Everstake, P2P.org, Blockdaemon, and Infstones. It has released CLI tools and documentation for easy integration, and reported testnet results showing 2.42x faster block propagation and 7.88x lower variance compared to baseline. The team has also engaged with the community via podcast appearances and active GitHub development.
One notable limitation: the RLNC library is not fully open-source due to university licensing obligations, which may raise transparency concerns for some users. However, the gateway itself is MIT-licensed.
Optimum, a high-performance memory infrastructure for any blockchain, was co-founded by MIT professor Muriel Médard, inventor of Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC), along with Dr. Kishori Konwar and Kent Lin. In February 2025, the project emerged from stealth and secured an angel round, backed by prominent Web3 figures, to launch its full-chain expansion solution. In April 2025, Optimum completed an $11 million seed round led by 1kx, with participation from Robot Ventures, Finality Capital, Spartan, and others. The funding supports its private testnet, which went live in March 2025 for L1/L2s and validators, and the development of its first product, mump2p, an RLNC-based data propagation protocol for Ethereum that reduces bandwidth usage and improves block delivery speed.
Optimum, a high-performance memory infrastructure for any blockchain, advanced significantly in H1 2026. Its mump2p protocol, based on Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC), graduated from Devnet to Ethereum's Hoodi Testnet, achieving 6.5x lower latency (~150ms) than Gossipsub's 1000ms baseline in a 30-node global deployment. The project secured an $11M seed round led by 1kx, with participation from CMT Digital, Spartan Capital, and others. Notably, Optimum launched a PERCH proposal with Lido, inviting node operators to run the Gateway sidecar on Hoodi for a one-month evaluation, targeting attestation timeliness and validator APR improvements.
Looking ahead, Optimum plans to support the Ethereum mainnet within one to two months, followed by monetization in Q3. The roadmap emphasizes chain-agnostic expansion to BNB Chain and Solana, broadening customers beyond validators to DeFi users and professional investors. South Korea is identified as a strategic market, with partnerships involving B-Harvest and Cosmostation. The team will publish a ProbeLab audit report and operator security guide alongside the public gateway repo.
Optimum was co-founded by three co-founders:
Muriel Medard (Co-founder & CEO): NEC Professor at MIT EECS, member of the US National Academy of Engineering, core inventor of Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC), with deep academic background in communications and network coding.
Kishori Konwar (Co-founder & CTO): Former Senior Engineer/Scientist at Meta, MIT postdoc, former quantitative analyst at Goldman Sachs, with hands-on engineering experience in distributed systems and coding theory.
Kent Lin (Co-founder & COO): Former Partner at GSR Ventures (head of crypto & Web3), Harvard MBA, former President of Harvard Blockchain Association, founded McKinsey Crypto DAO, with extensive industry resources and operational experience.