Multicoin: DoubleZero and the decentralized physical network layer

Author: Kyle Samani, Founder of Multicoin Capital; Translation: Golden Finance

DoubleZero (DZ) officially launched its mainnet testnet today. In March 2023, Multicoin Capital co-led a $28 million funding round for DoubleZero.

Blockchain is a globally distributed system. Over the past decade, core L1 teams have invested over $1 billion to optimize network protocols, consensus, execution, and storage. However, there is still one layer in the stack they have yet to address: the physical network layer. Intuitively, this seems beyond the scope of L1 teams. However, in a globally distributed system, the physical network layer is clearly critical to overall network performance.

DoubleZero aims to accelerate the transmission of data packets across the global physical network layer. How? By creating a permissionless, high-performance network link marketplace (also known as dedicated fiber). In the OSI protocol stack, DoubleZero is positioned below the L1 layer.

What is private fiber?

Broadly speaking, there are two types of internet lines worldwide: public lines and private lines. Most internet traffic is transmitted via public lines connecting cities, states, or even continents.

Around 2008 to 2010, trading firms began to realize that public internet speeds were too slow and unreliable to meet their latency requirements. As a result, they started investing in dedicated network infrastructure to ensure reliable, low-latency data packet transmission.

Today, the world’s largest trading firms—Jump, Citadel, HRT, Two Sigma, DRW, and others—own multi-billion-dollar custom network equipment, spanning various modes from submarine cables to microwave towers transmitting radio waves across Lake Michigan. Many of the largest tech companies—Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon—also own global private fiber connecting their data centers worldwide.

DoubleZero is a permissionless network that allows owners of any dedicated network infrastructure (from submarine cables to microwave towers) to contribute access to their underutilized or unused infrastructure. Previously, only the largest, most advanced clients globally—such as high-frequency trading firms, Google, Meta—had access to private fiber. DoubleZero democratizes this access, enabling anyone to use these services.

DoubleZero’s first bandwidth provider is Jump Trading, and its first client is the Solana network itself. Galaxy, Distributed Global Technologies, Rockaway X, Cherry Servers, Latitude, South 3rd Ventures, Teraswitch, and many others have recently announced they will provide fiber links for DoubleZero. DoubleZero has integrated with Solana’s three main clients: Agave, Firedancer, and Jito. Jito’s block engine is also integrated with DoubleZero.

With DoubleZero supporting the Solana Beta mainnet, validators will reach consensus faster, data will flow more freely and quickly, and users and market makers will complete transactions more rapidly. We believe this is a win-win for all parties.

However, DoubleZero is not limited to Solana. We expect all major L1 networks to adopt it in the coming years because we believe other networks will be unable to compete with DoubleZero’s enhanced network. Additionally, this network can serve centralized sequencers’ L2 networks, helping them distribute data to various localized RPC servers worldwide to meet latency-sensitive applications (such as trading).

Looking ahead, we anticipate DoubleZero’s applications will extend beyond core blockchain infrastructure. Any internet application sensitive to latency could become a DoubleZero client. We expect video calls, real-time global augmented reality, and competitive gaming services to utilize DoubleZero.

On September 29, 2025, DoubleZero cleared a significant hurdle in its large-scale deployment. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Office of Corporation Finance issued a “No-Action Letter” (NAL) regarding certain programmatic transfers of its native protocol token, 2Z, granting regulatory exemption. This cleared a major obstacle for large-scale application of DoubleZero. Users will pay fees with 2Z to transmit communications over the network, with part of the fees programmatically rewarded to network providers as compensation for offering fiber links and operating network hardware. Additionally, resource providers will receive newly minted 2Z tokens in a programmatic manner as compensation for tracking user interactions and payments, calculating network provider fees, and managing other protocol functions.

The NAL confirms that the SEC Office of Corporation Finance will not recommend enforcement action against such programmatic transfers of 2Z, thereby affirming that these transactions do not need to be registered as securities under U.S. federal securities laws. By reducing legal uncertainty, the NAL provides a clear pathway for DoubleZero to launch and operate its network, reinforcing the SEC’s ongoing recognition of responsible innovation in the digital asset space.

Austin Federa and DoubleZero Foundation General Counsel Mari Tomunen collaborated with the SEC (SEC) to achieve this milestone. We have known Austin for years, and when he told us he would team up with Andrew McConnell and Mateo Ward, we were very excited. Andrew McConnell and Mateo Ward have decades of experience building high-performance dedicated fiber networks for Jump. We believe the DoubleZero team has the best network engineers, deep understanding of high-performance blockchains, and an excellent marketing team.