Exclusive Interview with Cooper, Co-founder of Movement: From Dropout to Success, Building a Multi-billion Dollar Project Backed by the Trump Family
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Exclusive Interview with Cooper, Co-founder of Movement: From Dropout to Success, Building a Multi-billion Dollar Project Backed by the Trump Family
Cooper Scanlon shared his journey of decisively dropping out of school to dive into the crypto space, analyzed Movement's unique advantages and future roadmap amid fierce competition, and offered insightful perspectives on the industry's future development in light of the U.S. regulatory environment.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsInterview: Cassidy, PANews
Article: Nancy, PANews
In the rule-free arena of crypto, stories of dropout prodigies rising against the odds are not uncommon. Vitalik Buterin, CZ, Shayne Coplan, Pacman, Luca Netz… each name represents a maverick who defied conventions and seized the moment. Cooper Scanlon, co-founder of Movement, embodies how crypto technology empowers individuals to transcend socioeconomic barriers.
During the recent GMove Cooper: Movement’s APAC Tour 2025 stop in Taipei, PANews sat down with Cooper for an in-depth conversation. He shared his journey of leaving university to dive into crypto, explained Movement's unique advantages and roadmap amid fierce competition, and offered insights on the industry’s future under evolving U.S. regulatory conditions.
Coming from humble beginnings, Cooper once believed education was his path to a better life. But disillusioned by traditional career routes, he ultimately dropped out and bet everything on himself, fully immersing in the crypto market. In the interview, Cooper revealed that Movement has raised at least $55 million in venture funding and is now accelerating ecosystem development following the launch of its developer mainnet.
As a promising Ethereum L2 contender, Cooper openly criticized today’s L2 landscape for severe homogenization and lack of real innovation. Movement’s core strength lies in adopting the Move programming language to enhance security, executability, and audit efficiency. He firmly believes Move will replace Solidity as the dominant language for next-generation smart contracts. He also emphasized that community is the lifeline of any project, and launching the token before mainnet is crucial to ensuring decentralization and preventing excessive power concentration.
On crypto regulation, Cooper noted that while Trump is pro-crypto, policy shifts take time—over the next four years, domestic projects may gradually benefit from a more favorable environment.
Dropout Enters Market in Bear Times, Targets Move Language for the "Big Opportunity"
Cooper grew up in a remote American town with scarce career opportunities. Burdened by financial hardship from a young age, he had to work to survive while supporting his family. In high school, he began working odd jobs, but soon realized such labor only ensured subsistence—not upward mobility. Determined to break free, Cooper pinned his hopes on scoring well on the ACT exam, believing admission to a top university was his golden ticket. Eventually, he gained entry to Vanderbilt University. Uncertain about his career path, he chose an unconventional yet practical major—Human and Organizational Development, akin to business psychology—while minoring in computer science and philosophy, skills he believed would apply across fields.
Yet college failed to provide Cooper with clarity. Too young to have capitalized on the internet and social media booms, he constantly asked: What’s the next big opportunity? And how can I seize it? The rise of cryptocurrency caught his attention. He sensed a nascent field lacking true experts—where a motivated student could rapidly become a “relative expert” through self-study. So Cooper began collaborating with major funds, teaching them about tokenization and blockchain while learning their operational models.
"Every week, I compiled what I’d learned into presentations and taught them," he recalled. "For just a few hours weekly, I was face-to-face with managing partners of large funds. I realized that on a traditional career path, it might take decades to sit in those rooms. Emerging tech let me do it during college."
Meanwhile, Cooper landed an internship at Bloomberg. Initially, he thought joining a major firm would change his life. But reality shattered that dream—soaring rents and fierce housing competition in New York made survival difficult. Even with a top-tier internship, his salary couldn’t cover basic living costs. This experience left him deeply disillusioned with traditional career paths. He realized real opportunities lay in applying emerging technologies to real-world use cases—and these skills didn’t require a degree. That day, Cooper made a bold decision: quit his Bloomberg internship and drop out of Vanderbilt. Behind this choice was the fact that he was already working on fund-backed projects and developing structured products using the Move language.
At the moment of dropping out, Cooper felt not fear—but excitement. The previous weeks had been overwhelming, packed with work that left no room for other ambitions. "Honestly, depending on others for survival is far scarier than dropping out. Market conditions keep worsening, and I believe this trend will continue. I never want to go back to worrying about my next meal. So I decided to bet everything on myself—and it’s the best decision I’ve ever made," Cooper admitted.
In November 2022, Cooper co-founded Movement with Rushi Manche, another dropout founder. But they launched right after the FTX collapse, deep in a crypto bear market—liquidity dried up, and investor confidence hit rock bottom. At the same time, Move, a new blockchain programming language, wasn’t widely accepted. Public perception of Move was tied mostly to the performance of Move-based chains like Aptos and Sui, which themselves struggled during the post-FTX crash.
"When we started, liquidity was extremely low—deep in a bear market. People questioned me: 'You’ll go back to school, right? Try it, then return when it’s over.' The biggest challenge was convincing people to bet on us and on Move. Move was so new; most had zero experience. All they saw was how Move chains performed poorly after FTX collapsed. Even the most elite Web3 teams—like the Swedish team straight out of Facebook’s Libra project, with backgrounds from top global firms—had failed. So people asked: If they couldn’t make it, what chance do two college dropouts have?" Cooper recalled.
Faced with skepticism, Cooper and Rushi chose action. "Our response was relentless effort. At one point, we wrote a 50-page document over a single weekend—detailing our whitepaper, marketing strategy, and ecosystem roadmap. We had to pour immense energy into showing people we were worth betting on and inspiring their confidence."
"We pitched to hundreds of people—hundreds of rejections—before getting our first 'yes.' Persistence is exactly what brought Movement this far," Cooper advised young founders. "Be ready to prove yourself and willing to go the extra mile. The hardest part is getting that first believer. Success often comes down to time and passion—believing in your mission and pushing forward even when rewards aren’t immediate. Once you get that first supporter, the snowball starts rolling."
Despite a rocky start, Movement gradually earned market recognition. Today, Movement’s FDV has reached billions of dollars. Cooper disclosed $55 million in funding from investors including Polychain Capital, YZi Labs, Hack VC, Robot Ventures, Bankless Ventures, and Aptos.
Developer Mainnet Launch: Accelerating Ecosystem Growth
This February, Movement announced the launch of its developer mainnet—a pivotal step for this Move-based Ethereum Layer 2 solution. The launch opened core infrastructure, released technical documentation and developer resources, and enabled select partners and DeFi protocols to deploy.
To Cooper, launching the mainnet is like throwing a meticulously planned party—DJ, lights, balloons, nothing missing. Currently, Movement is focused on integrating all components to ensure smooth ecosystem operations, including Cornucopia, its multi-asset liquidity program. Launched alongside the public mainnet beta, Cornucopia aims to boost market efficiency by providing foundational support for DeFi applications. In the interview, Cooper likened the program to replacing a "mechanical hard drive" with a "solid-state drive," designed to inject strong liquidity at mainnet launch and ensure seamless DeFi operations when incentives go live.
For any emerging blockchain, liquidity is vital—especially in core DeFi areas like indices and lending. Cooper understands this well: "Our goal is to prepare liquidity for core applications so the DeFi ecosystem runs smoothly when incentives kick in."
Beyond technical optimization, Cornucopia also targets integration with real-world assets (RWA) and institutional capital. "What excites me most is seeing RWA and institutional products converge with our network. These products were previously accessible only to ultra-high-net-worth individuals—even U.S. citizens like me found them out of reach due to their yields, sometimes double that of regular products," Cooper said. He added this was precisely why Facebook originally developed Move—to offer institutions secure, efficient blockchain solutions, a need Solidity can no longer meet due to limitations in security and speed.
Movement aims to bring these high-quality financial products to global users via DeFi. "We want users not only to access U.S. financial products and USD, but also to use RWAs for on-chain innovation—like lending or derivatives trading—building a truly powerful financial environment," Cooper added.
Beyond injecting Cornucopia liquidity into apps to boost ecosystem vitality, Movement plans to introduce application incentive programs—similar to a "Move annual yield" model—to encourage deeper user engagement, along with the upcoming second phase of the Parthenon testnet.
Additionally, to attract and retain developers, Movement is expanding globally, recently focusing on its Asia tour. "Asia is the future of programming—it has the largest developer base and fastest growth," Cooper said. By hosting events worldwide, Movement brings together developers, investors, community members, KOLs, and traders, offering new entrants resources, market support, and funding channels. This puzzle-piece approach to ecosystem building accelerates project deployment and lays the groundwork for future global hackathons. Cooper revealed that after the successful Movement Mania event, the next global competition is already in the works, aiming to further ignite creativity within the developer community.
Aiming to Reshape Ethereum L2 with Move, Championing Community-Driven Strategy
As a Move-based Ethereum L2, Movement Network seeks to enhance blockchain security and high executability. Yet today’s Ethereum L2 space is oversaturated, marked by clear winner-takes-all dynamics, complex user experiences, and fragmented ecosystems.
"There are too many blockchains now, especially L2s. The market is crowded because most L2s are just clones—10% faster, repackaged with new marketing—no real difference. They still suffer from Solidity and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) limitations," Cooper said. Movement’s key differentiator is bringing the next-gen smart contract language, Move, directly into the Ethereum ecosystem. On Movement, users gain both security and performance, enjoy easier smart contract development, conduct audits faster and cheaper, and accelerate on-chain innovation—all without leaving Ethereum. They can directly experience Move’s full benefits within the familiar Ethereum environment.
Cooper firmly believes Move will become the mainstream language for smart contract development. "Move is truly our North Star—it’s the future of smart contract development and will replace Solidity. A million developers will learn Move in the future. Look at fast-growing emerging markets like Vietnam and Nigeria—developers there are already shifting from Rust to Move."
Yet Movement isn’t alone in the Move ecosystem. Projects like Aptos and Sui also leverage Move, each with technical strengths. Cooper stressed that Movement stands out through its commitment to decentralization and community-driven development. While most chains maximize token allocations for teams and investors at launch—and lock tokens via staking, resulting in circulation far below staked supply, harming token holders—Movement puts community first. Tokens are held by supporters, developers, builders, and community members. The team and investors do not stake. This means circulating tokens are entirely in users’ hands, eliminating fears of insider dumping. This decentralized, community-first model strengthens trust and attracts long-term contributors. Movement also maintains close communication with developers via Telegram, hosts AMAs, runs marketing campaigns, and provides funding to help ecosystem teams grow quickly.
Community culture remains central to Movement’s vision. In Web3, communities are increasingly the driving force behind project success. "Community is the lifeline of any project. Without it, you might as well quit," Cooper stated. Even with cutting-edge tech, a project can’t survive without users. Looking back at crypto history, some networks and tokens with mediocre tech have maintained value and relevance thanks to strong community backing. In today’s hyper-competitive chain landscape, tech matters—but community activity and loyalty are what truly determine winners. Especially when every chain fights for the same users, the key differentiator becomes who best identifies and rewards their users, who builds the most organic, vibrant community. It’s not just about cool tech—it’s about giving people something to believe in, something to participate in. Movement, I think, gets this right. I believe this will ultimately deliver a better experience for users across the industry.
Precisely because of its community focus, unlike many crypto projects that issue tokens after mainnet launch, Movement completed its TGE (token generation event) before mainnet went live. Cooper explained that any network starting from scratch risks power centralization and malicious behavior. Pre-launch token distribution helps achieve decentralization early, ensuring smoother network operations. This strategy received strong support from the community and partners, especially given the relatively positive market sentiment at the time. "Looking back, the timing was nearly perfect—helping us secure a stronger position amid today’s tough market conditions," Cooper admitted.
Backed by the Trump Family, Acknowledges Crypto Regulation Hasn’t Changed Substantively
Trump’s friendly stance toward crypto and expectations of looser policies open up greater room for the industry. U.S.-based projects like Movement may see expanded opportunities ahead.
Cooper commented: "As a U.S.-based founding team, we’re excited by this vision of 'neo-centralism.' All our efforts—expanding user bases, bringing in users from key emerging markets—are closely aligned with U.S. strategic interests. These markets are critical for the U.S., not just as frontiers for financial expansion, but as battlegrounds for maintaining dollar dominance. We’ve received significant support in this area."
Still, Cooper acknowledged that while optimism is real, regulatory change won’t happen overnight. "So far, the regulatory environment hasn’t seen substantive change—that’s partly why the market has cooled slightly recently. The excitement is genuine, but policy implementation takes time. Current frameworks evolved over decades and can’t be overturned overnight. Still, we believe over the next four years, U.S. crypto regulation will gradually shift toward positivity. Whether encouraging domestic teams to return or offering more support for crypto, these changes will create new opportunities for the industry."
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