Paradigm, a prolific cryptocurrency venture capital firm, announced Friday that it had invested $20 million in a spinoff company building a new layer 2 blockchain. We expect this to accelerate blockchain development.
Paradigm Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and General Partner Georgios Konstantopoulos will serve as CEO of Ithaca, according to Paradigm. Odyssey is the name of Layer 2, which Ithaca will build as part of a larger technology stack, the VC said.
Layer 2 built with Reth and OP stack is now live on testnet.
“Think of Ithaca as a company building a full stack of products and tools that developers need to launch faster and consumers need to experience less and less friction.” Konstantopoulos told The Block.
while Constantopoulos Both companies will remain Paradigm’s CTOs, but the new companies should be considered Paradigm portfolio companies, he said. Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang will take over as Ithaca’s chairman, they said.
Paradigm, a large investor in the cryptocurrency space, has also invested in companies and projects including Uniswap, Coinbase, and Flashbots. Open source tools like Reth and Foundry. Projects using Reth and Foundry include Optimism, Base, and Worldcoin, Paradigm said.
Konstantopoulos told The Block that Ithaca and Odyssey are a continuation of development work Paradigm and its engineers have been working on in recent years.
“Cryptocurrencies need to develop faster,” Konstantopoulos said. “teaThe entire cryptocurrency industry needs to accelerate, and acceleration doesn’t just mean more transactions per second, it means higher innovation and iterating faster to launch exciting new things that only cryptocurrencies can do.”
Stands out among Layer 2
When asked what makes Odyssey stand out compared to competing Layer 2 products, Konstantopoulos called Ithaca’s Odyssey “Layer 2 from the future.”
“What sets Odyssey apart is that it offers a number of features embedded in the future of the Ethereum roadmap that other teams have not yet built,” he explained, adding that Odyssey will enable more robust smart wallet contracts. “More powerful, smart contract wallets mean seamless onboarding for cryptocurrencies, solving one of the most important problems.”
Layer 2 networks are built on top of Layer 1 blockchains to improve scalability or enhance the network’s ability to handle increasing transaction volumes without compromising speed or cost-effectiveness. Popular layer 2 solutions include Ethereum-based Polygon or Bitcoin-based Lightning Network.
Konstantopoulos said Paradigm will continue to build and conduct research, but the creation of a new company, as it did in Ithaca, should not be viewed as a sign of more work to come. “We are by no means an accelerator or anything like that,” he said.
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