Optimum Raises $11M Funding to Build “Missed” Memory Layer for Blockchains

Optimum Funding:- Blockchains, by design, are stateless. Each transaction or smart contract execution is isolated from the others.

This means that smart contracts cannot “remember” previous interactions unless they explicitly store information on-chain. But this can be inefficient and costly.

However, with a memory layer, the decentralized finance (DeFi) application could store a user’s staking history, balance, or even preferences in a memory layer. This will make it much easier for the users to track and interact with their portfolio.

In a major stride toward achieving this, Optimum, a Web3 infrastructure startup, has raised $11 million in a funding round led by prominent crypto investors.

The company is building a “memory layer” that aims to enable instant and permissionless access to historical on-chain data across all major blockchains.

The seed funding round was co-led by Maven 11, 1kx, and Galaxy Ventures, with participation from Hashed, Robot Ventures, and Inflection.xyz, among others. Notably, the investor lineup reflects growing appetite for data infrastructure in Web3.

The capital will be used to expand the team, enhance developer tools, and roll out the core infrastructure of Optimum’s memory layer across multiple ecosystems.

Can Optimum Solve Blockchain’s “Amnesia Problem”?

Blockchains, by design, are optimized for consensus and verification. But they are not for storing or querying massive amounts of historical data.

Optimum validates its existence by arguing that most decentralized applications (dApps) rely on third-party indexers or off-chain solutions to access older states. This ends up creating bottlenecks, points of failure, and a lack of verifiability.

Optimum aims to  address what it calls the “amnesia problem” of blockchains. It is working on a composable memory layer that allows developers and smart contracts to fetch any historical data directly, quickly, and trustlessly.

Notably without historical memory, detecting suspicious behavior (like sandwich attacks, MEV patterns, or recurring exploits) becomes tough.

Web3, our “world computer” lacks a high-performance memory layer. Like any computer, memory is critical for blockchains to store, access, and update data efficiently.

Instead of a proper memory architecture, blockchains currently rely on a patchwork of best-effort solutions… pic.twitter.com/2gghJx7KID

— Optimum (@get_optimum) April 15, 2025

How It Works

Optimum’s memory layer operates as an abstraction over multiple blockchains, storing compressed and verifiable summaries of historical state data.

It uses advanced cryptographic techniques—such as zero-knowledge proofs and succinct data commitments—to ensure data integrity and composability.

This means developers can ask questions like “What was the ETH balance of this address on June 1, 2021?” directly on-chain without relying on centralized APIs like Etherscan or The Graph.

It aims to provide modern computing type storage capabilities to Blockchains. For this, it is developing a RAM layer called DeRAM. This layer would provide real-time read/write access to Blockchain state for cheap yet fast storage capabilities.

The memory layer is designed to work across Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, and other major Layer-1 and Layer-2 chains, positioning Optimum as a universal data availability protocol.

Co-founded and led by MIT Professor Muriel Medard, its core lies in Random Liner Network Coding (RLNC). This data coding pioneering idea transforms data into coded packets. She recently released a video explaining the whole concept and her vision.

Notably, smart contracts are mostly stateless and don’t remember past interactions unless explicitly designed to.

Without a memory layer, users are repeatedly asked for information already provided (e.g., login details, past balances, asset histories).

What’s Next?

Optimum plans to launch a testnet version of its memory layer by Q3 2025, starting with support for Ethereum and Solana. It has currently launched only private testnet.

The full mainnet rollout is scheduled for early 2026, accompanied by an SDK and GraphQL-like query language for developers.

The team is also exploring incentive models to decentralize data provisioning, including potential token rewards for nodes that contribute to the memory network.

Thus, as blockchain moves from raw ledgers to intelligent state machines, Optimum is aiming to position itself as the memory that powers “world computer” of web3.

Disclaimer: The content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market conditions. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.