Undefined Labs:
Welcome everyone to this special episode with Undefined Labs. Thank you for tuning in. In this series, we spotlight those who are building the most ambitious infrastructure foundations in Web3. Today, we are very pleased to welcome Annabelle Huang – CEO and co-founder of Altius Labs, a team that is addressing the biggest performance bottlenecks in blockchain.
Annabelle will share why Altius is not just another blockchain, but a modular execution layer that helps chains scale more powerfully than ever.
Hello Annabelle! Can you briefly introduce yourself, your background, and your current role at the company?
Annabelle:
Of course! Hello everyone. Thank you for inviting me to the podcast today. I am Annabelle Huang, co-founder and CEO of Altius Labs. I have been active in the blockchain field for about 7 years. Initially, I built a DeFi platform very early on Ethereum around 2017–2018, then shifted to providing liquidity and trading.
Previously, I was an operating partner at Amber Group, living in Asia for several years. Last year, I decided to partner with a new team – my co-founders come from high-frequency trading (HFT) – to build the next generation of blockchain infrastructure, specifically focusing on the execution layer, to bring high performance to every blockchain.
Undefined Labs::
We are doing this podcast to help users in Korea better understand the founders and the products. Before getting into blockchain, what did you do? Did you work in traditional finance or marketing?
Annabelle:
I was born and raised in Asia, but I went to college in the US – at Carnegie Mellon. I studied math and finance. After graduating, I started my career on Wall Street, working at one of the few banks that were still there at that time – a bank that later relocated. I worked in FX structuring and derivatives trading until I discovered crypto in 2017 – quite by chance when I met the founding team of AirSwap in New York. They also studied at Carnegie Mellon, so they were alumni like me. They talked about the future of decentralized finance and how Ethereum could change everything through smart contracts.
Back then, it was really different. There weren't many native on-chain people. Trading tokens was extremely difficult due to lack of liquidity. We built AirSwap for a while and then I moved from New York back to Asia – specifically Hong Kong – to reach out to different traders. At that time, Hong Kong was the center of many exchanges like BitMEX, and later FTX. I tried to attract them to trade on DEX. But the biggest issue I saw was providing liquidity – a major bottleneck. So I joined Amber Group. We all had similar backgrounds – having worked at investment banks and then shifted to crypto – and built Amber into a large market maker, trading both CEX and on-chain. Thanks to that, we had a good position in the DeFi wave of 2020. We experimented with MEV, HFT trading...
After a few years, I decided to return to my original dream: promoting applications, use cases, and on-chain adoption. That's why Altius was born – to fill the infrastructure gap of the next generation.
Undefined Labs::
The name 'Altius' sounds quite difficult to pronounce. Does it have any special meaning?
Annabelle:
Actually, I'm not very good at naming. We had been building the project for a while without settling on a name. Last summer, I was watching the Olympics. The Olympic motto consists of three words: 'Faster, Higher, Stronger.'
In which 'Altius' means Higher. I really like this meaning – always striving for higher performance, pushing beyond limits. The Olympic spirit – constantly challenging oneself – also aligns well with our spirit.
Undefined Labs::
Many people understand what layer 1 and layer 2 are, but the concept of 'execution-only' is a bit hard to understand. Can you explain it in general?
Annabelle:
Of course, this is a quite technical concept that is hard to grasp. Visually, blockchain infrastructure consists of four layers.
At the bottom layer is the recording layer, where everything is finally recorded, such as on Ethereum, Solana, or even Bitcoin. To achieve this, you need consensus – that is, everyone must agree on the state of the chain before it is considered finalized.
Typically, the execution layer is still grouped with the consensus layer. But as modular thinking becomes more popular, we have seen the data availability layer separated out, and now the execution layer can also be separated from the consensus layer.
So, in a more modular approach to blockchain infrastructure, you will have a recording layer, a consensus layer, a data layer, and finally an execution layer – where smart contracts are executed to transition the chain from its current state to the next block, before being confirmed and recorded on the chain by the consensus layer.
Execution was originally grouped with consensus, but thanks to modularity, we can separate it. Instead of having to create many chains to scale (which easily leads to fragmentation of liquidity and UX), we want to help each chain become as fast as Solana, or faster by improving execution.
Undefined Labs:
So what projects is Altius working with?
Annabelle:
We are about to announce some design partners. One of them is an EVM-compatible L1, using Cosmos consensus, with an EVM layer on top. We are helping them increase the performance of the execution layer. Additionally, there are some Ethereum rollups using the OP Stack – integration with Altius is quite simple, improving performance much more than the current Ethereum client.
We started with EVM because this is the more accessible place – like picking the low-hanging fruit first. The EVM itself has many performance bottlenecks that have been clearly identified, and we are focusing on resolving those bottlenecks.
Our approach is to incorporate parallel execution capabilities instead of sequential execution like currently. At the same time, we are also optimizing the state retrieval process – that is, how data is read and written into the system – so that everything happens faster and more efficiently.
Undefined Labs:
The classic question: decentralization – security – speed. How does Altius balance these three factors?
Annabelle:
We are only focusing on the execution layer and do not require significant changes in the other layers. In terms of performance, many people use powerful servers (SSD, high RAM) to speed things up, but that increases centralization because not everyone can run it. Altius, on the contrary: we optimize performance while still running on common infrastructure – you can rent on AWS.
My CTO previously worked in HFT, specializing in distributed systems, caching – helping to improve speed without increasing hardware costs.
In terms of security, we inherit security from the VM currently being used, do not create a new VM, and do not change programming languages. Developers do not need to learn anything new. And if there is an issue, we can always revert to the original EVM state. No new security risks are added.
Undefined Labs:
Do you think all chains in the future will be modular? Or is there still room for L1 and L2?
Annabelle:
L1/L2 and modularity are not mutually exclusive. In fact, most L2s are already modular because they separate the rollup from the settlement. I believe there will be more chains, but they will be application-specific chains, using a modular approach – choosing suitable execution, DA, consensus, and settlement like building with Lego. Just like Web2 – you don't need to build your own data center, just rent a node, use SaaS. Web3 will be like that too.
Undefined Labs:
What does the future roadmap of Altius look like? What is the ultimate vision?
Annabelle
Currently, we are in the first phase, which is building implementations for each specific VM. We started with EVM because it is a reasonable starting point, and then we will expand to other VMs.
Once we have those implementations, our next step is horizontal integration, meaning connecting those implementations back into a common execution layer, where Altius can serve as a transaction processor for multiple different chains.
And in the final stage, we want to scale and decentralize the entire network to allow many independent validators or executors to participate and share resources with each other, from computing power to storage. At that point, if a chain experiences overload or spikes in traffic, we can completely coordinate and distribute that workload to other parts of the network, just like how Netflix distributes load when too many people are watching a show.
Undefined Labs:
Sounds like Loki in the new Disney series merging timelines into a single system?
Annabelle:
That's right. We don't want new developers to have to rebuild everything. They should focus on applications. We take care of the performance so they are always ready for the future.
Undefined Labs:
How do you see interest from Korea? Are there any expansion plans?
Annabelle:
Currently, we are still implementing the technology and have not publicized much. When we launch with partner chains, users everywhere, including Korea, will benefit. Many large businesses like Line and Kakao are also building their own chains. We want to collaborate with those chains so that Korean users can have a smoother on-chain gaming experience thanks to the Altius stack.
Undefined Labs:
Will you attend Korea Blockchain Week this year? What do you find interesting in the Korean market?
Annabelle:
Sure! Previously, when working at AirSwap and Amber, I managed teams in Korea. I understand that user behavior here is very different. Users are more interested in tokenomics than technical infrastructure. But I appreciate their enthusiasm and curiosity to learn.
We do not directly do DeFi, but we want to collaborate with businesses like Kakao, so users can feel the different UX thanks to Altius.
Undefined Labs:
Koreans really love 'alpha'. Is there any major milestone in the next 6–12 months?
Annabelle:
Definitely. Before September, we will announce the first batch of design partners including both L1, L2, and other modular stacks. The goal is to bring the Altius Stack to as many users as possible through partnerships. Stay tuned for announcements from our blog, website, or Twitter/X.
Undefined Labs:
Besides X/Twitter, is there anywhere else to follow the project?
Annabelle:
We regularly update on X (@AltiusLabs). There is also a very active Discord, and the Ambassador program has also been launched. We really look forward to meeting the community in Seoul, organizing a meetup if possible.
Undefined Labs:
Thank you very much, Annabelle! The answer is extremely insightful. I believe the Korean community will really love this podcast.
Annabelle:
Thank you! Hope to see everyone in Seoul in September.
