Fogo, a new blockchain built on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), has launched its public mainnet, promising to bring Wall Street-grade speed to decentralized trading. The network boasts a 40-millisecond block time, which the team claims is up to 18x faster than competitors like Solana and Sui. Basically, if Solana is a Tesla, Fogo claims it’s already testing warp drives.
Developed by former Wall Street execs, Fogo is positioning itself as the go-to chain for decentralized exchanges and financial apps requiring high performance. The project cites its combination of SVM-level performance, MEV mitigation, and fast finality as key advantages. It’s like they looked at the institutional world, stole its speed, and decided to give it to the degen masses.
Coinciding with the mainnet launch, "Fogo Flames" points holders can now convert their rewards into FOGO tokens. The token is immediately tradable on major exchanges including Binance, OKX, and Bybit. So, if you’ve been farming those points, you can finally cash out before the rest of the market figures out what’s happening.
The Fogo Foundation previously conducted a strategic token sale on Binance, selling 2% of the supply at a $350 million valuation to raise about $7 million. The project also raised $8 million in a community funding round via Echo (Cobie's platform) and a $5.5 million seed round. That’s a serious war chest for a project that’s essentially trying to make Solana look like dial-up internet.
Fogo's testnet, launched in July 2025, consistently topped performance leaderboards, reportedly hitting a max of 136,866 TPS according to Chainspect data. About 10 dapps are launching on mainnet, including decentralized exchange Valiant, launchpad Moonit, liquid staking protocol Brasa, and lending protocols Pyron and Fogolend. It seems the builders are already lining up for that sweet, sweet speed.
"We designed Fogo to be user-first and to meaningfully involve the builders and traders who have been building with us from day one," said Doug Colkitt, co-founder and former Citadel Securities researcher. It’s a nice sentiment, but in crypto, "user-first" usually just means "your transaction doesn't get sandwiched by a validator." Let’s see if Fogo can actually deliver on that promise without the usual Wall Street baggage.
