Kuru Labs: Building a new type of on-chain trading platform on a high-performance platform

Recently, a startup project focused on building an on-chain order book trading platform, Kuru Labs, completed a $11.5 million Series A funding round. The round was led by a well-known investment institution, with participation from several industry veterans. Kuru Labs aims to create a full-chain trading platform that combines order book architecture with automated market-making logic on an emerging high-performance public chain, providing a more balanced trading experience for different types of users.

Kuru Labs was established in 2024 by a team with extensive experience in high-frequency trading, DeFi protocol development, and on-chain system optimization. The core philosophy of the project is to redesign from the ground up, integrating the advantages of existing mainstream trading models to create a spot trading system on the blockchain that is closer to the traditional exchange experience.

In terms of technical architecture, Kuru adopts a hybrid system that combines an order book with automated market-making functionality. The core of this design is the introduction of a default automated market-making algorithm in the on-chain order book for each trading pair, ensuring that users receive basic quote support even in the absence of active liquidity providers. This approach does not rely on centralized market makers, nor does it impose uniform constraints on price curves like traditional AMMs, but rather provides the possibility of flexibly switching between the two modes.

Kuru has also designed an order management mechanism suitable for on-chain environments. The submission and cancellation of limit orders use low-cost and predictable gas fees, allowing market makers and strategy traders to operate frequently without being hindered by high costs. At the same time, the team is developing a passive liquidity mechanism that allows ordinary users to use assets for liquidity support through strategy contracts, without the need to manage orders personally. This design aims to lower the participation threshold while increasing the funding coverage of the on-chain order book.

Kuru has chosen to deploy its platform on the Monad blockchain. Monad is a new Layer 1 blockchain compatible with the Ethereum EVM and is currently still in the testing phase. Unlike existing EVM public chains, Monad has re-engineered the execution engine from the ground up, utilizing a parallel architecture and pipelined scheduling mechanism to enhance processing capability and reduce block generation latency. Internal tests have shown that Monad can achieve a processing capacity of 10,000 TPS in a controlled environment while maintaining a one-second block generation speed.

Despite the innovative technical architecture of Kuru, the project still faces some real challenges. Firstly, the Monad mainnet has not yet been launched, and its actual performance and stability remain to be verified. Secondly, there may be obstacles to user migration, as most current on-chain transaction users are already accustomed to the usage of AMM platforms.

Looking ahead, Kuru's hybrid order book model is expected to provide a new on-chain trading option between existing AMMs and centralized order books. This architecture could not only cover mainstream trading pairs but also serve long-tail assets, thereby establishing a unified trading infrastructure for various asset types. However, the project's success also depends on the actual performance of the Monad network and users' acceptance of the new trading model.