Introduction to Optimum
Optimum is the fastest decentralized internet protocol for web3. It accelerates low-latency gossip across geographically distributed nodes to scale data access and reduce network congestion for latency-sensitive dApps.
Powered by Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) — a cutting-edge data encoding technique developed under the supervision of Professor Muriel Medard, EECS, MIT. By applying RLNC to gossip, Optimum reduces redundancy and improves loss tolerance; under standard RLNC models, the dissemination strategy is provably optimal for throughput/latency under loss and contention.
Network & roles. Optimum runs as a permissionless network of flexnodes that anyone can operate alongside existing clients and P2P stacks.
Products
Builders and operators can adopt mump2p now for measurable latency gains via the Optimum Gateway.
mump2p
RLNC-accelerated, libp2p/gossipsub-compatible pub/sub for fast, resilient propagation of blocks, blobs, and transactions.
Get started: Overview · Optimum Gateway
Flexnodes
A flexnode is an operator-run node that participates in Optimum's coded gossip and serves memory requests. Flexnodes:
- encode, decode, and forward RLNC-coded gossip frames;
- maintain bounded coded buffers to recover loss and smooth tail latency;
- interoperate with existing clients and libp2p/gossipsub where applicable.
Start here
- Run the Optimum Gateway: Gateway docs
Intended users
L1/L2 teams (faster block/blob propagation); validators (lower missed-slot risk → APY/MEV uplift); node operators & builders (lower tail latency); dApp developers (faster inclusion); end users (snappier UX).

