Linea’s growth lead resigns over vision discrepancies

As a researcher with a keen interest in blockchain technology and its ecosystem, I have closely followed the journey of Linea, the zk-rollup project developed by Consensys, over the past few years. The recent departure of Marco Monaco, who served as the growth lead for Linea, is undoubtedly a significant development within the community.


Linea’s growth has resulted in Marco Monaco leaving his position due to a lack of agreement regarding the project’s intended path.

Marco Monaco, who served as the growth leader for Linea – a zk-rollup created by ConsenSys – recently announced his departure from the project, explaining that he and the team had differing perspectives regarding the project’s direction as the main factor behind his decision.

On September 11th, through X, Monaco announced that he is no longer associated with Linea in any role. This decision comes after a timeframe of reduced participation on his part over the last few months. Previously, he had resigned from Consensys.

2/ You might have observed a substantial drop in my activity, particularly if you’re part of the Linea developer community. I bid farewell to Consensys in mid-June, and by mid-July, I had formally ended my involvement with the project following EthCC.

— Marco Monaco (@marcomonaco83) September 11, 2024

During his two-year term, Monaco claims he dedicated almost all of his waking hours – approximately 20 hours each day – towards shaping Linea’s business strategy. He underscored his dedication to constructing a thriving ecosystem and using Consensys technology stack to propel the platform forward. However, despite his notable accomplishments, Monaco expressed a wish to change the network’s image from being solely about farming, to prioritizing community interaction and fostering organic growth.

During Linea’s major transformation, Monaco observed that the evaluation process and strategic conversations ultimately resulted in an understanding between Monaco and Consensys leadership that his ongoing participation was not consistent with the project’s evolving path.

[…] ConsenSys leadership and I have come to a mutual understanding that for the continued success of Linea, it’s no longer appropriate for my personal involvement, as our professional goals no longer align.]

Marco Monaco

However, he did not elaborate on the specific points of disagreement with Consensys.

Monaco’s exit occurs not long after Linea encountered criticism for halting its entire system to prevent a hacker, who had exploited a decentralized exchange on Linea (Velocore), from stealing approximately $7 million. In June, Linea admitted to halting block production in an attempt to stop the hacker from selling a substantial amount of stolen tokens. This action received criticism from the wider cryptocurrency community.

The one-hour interlude enabled Linea to evaluate the predicament and collaborate with Velocore team members and centralized exchanges to immobilize the hacker’s assets. Nevertheless, this move triggered apprehensions regarding the project’s centralization, as some pointed out that halting the entire network might be problematic, given that it contained approximately $1.2 billion worth of locked value at the time, based on L2Beat data.

Linea admitted that their heavy dependence on centralized operations posed a potential risk, yet emphasized their determination to shift towards a distributed, censorship-free network instead.

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2024-09-11 13:32