Rome announces the launch of its native token ROME, having raised a cumulative $9 million.

On October 13, according to official announcements, cross-chain interoperability protocol Rome Protocol announced the launch of its native token ROME. The protocol aims to connect the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with Solana, enabling Solidity smart contracts to achieve atomic settlement within a single transaction with Solana native programs and assets, while its underlying code is already running on the Solana mainnet and has been audited by Halborn.

Regarding token utility, ROME will serve as the native gas token for the Rome mainnet. Additionally, half of the fee revenue generated by Rome Protocol from all supported on-chain transactions will be either retained or used to repurchase ROME on the open market, with the funds deposited into an unsellable reserve. Officials stated that this announcement does not constitute a public token sale, and specific supply and issuance plans will be published once finalized.

To date, Rome Protocol has secured $9 million in funding from investors including Portal Ventures, Hack VC, HashKey, Anagram, Robot Ventures, and Bankless Ventures, along with angel investors such as Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Austin Federa, and Santiago Santos. The protocol’s tech stack is now open-sourced on GitHub, and it is currently developing the Solana zkEVM and Canton zkEVM, which use Solana exclusively as their settlement and data availability layer.