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The Swiss non-profit Anoma Foundation has received significant funding to continue the development and research of the third generation blockchain architecture.
The third round of fundraising raised $25 million for the organization, which is building what it describes as a generalized, intent-driven blockchain architecture. The technology is touted as enabling the development of fully decentralized applications (DApps) and services ranging from decentralized exchanges (DEXs) to blockchain federation protocols.
Anoma co-founder Adrian Brink told Cointelegraph that its third generation architecture offers greater composability and ease of use than existing smart contract protocols such as Ethereum and its Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Brink highlighted the evolution of blockchain systems, with Bitcoin (BTC) being the first generation of scripted settlement architecture. Ethereum has become the second generation of programmable settlement architecture, while Anoma aims to further decentralize existing blockchain-based applications and platforms:
“Anoma is the first intent-driven architecture, marking the third generation of architectures that contrast with current transaction and blockchain-centric architectures.”
Its latest fundraising round is designed to support ongoing initiatives to develop and research the Anoma architecture and developer tools for its ecosystem.
Related: Beginner’s Guide to Understanding the Layers of Blockchain Technology
Brink emphasized Anoma’s core intent-driven design principle, which allows for fully decentralized versions of existing DApps such as rollups; non-fungible token (NFT) markets such as OpenSea and Flashbots; and decentralized exchanges, which have centralized components and limited settlement functions in networks:
“This enables applications that cannot be built on existing smart contract protocols, such as fully decentralized Gitcoin, Plural Money, Collaborative Finance, multi-dimensional DAOs, run-time rollups, or multi-party multi-variant barter.”
Brink describes the intent-driven design of Anoma as a radical new take on how industry architects have decentralized systems, as opposed to transaction or blockchain-centric approaches such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other blockchains.
A July 2022 report by Chainalysis highlights Algorand, BNB Chain and Avalanche as competing Tier 1 chains with Ethereum seeking greater scalability or security.
The layer 1 blockchain set has been modeled after Bitcoin and Ethereum, providing the functionality of transactions and smart contracts.