Neon Labs, a firm focused on secure blockchain technology, announced today that it will be deploying a cross-chain Ethereum virtual machine on the Solana testnet. Neon’s EVM will allow any decentralized application from the Ethereum ecosystem to leverage the high throughput and fast block times of Solana, and to access the lower gas prices of its blockchain without requiring code changes.
Fast facts
- An announcement shared with Forkast.News revealed that the Neon EVM creates a compatibility layer for Ethereum smart contracts to run on the Solana blockchain. The cross-chain solution works by introducing incentivized Neon EVM operators to the Solana blockchain, which facilitate transactions on behalf of Ethereum dApp users. The operators receive Ethereum-like transactions from dApps that use Neon EVM. They wrap them into Solana transactions that are sent for execution on the Solana blockchain.
- “Ethereum is a thriving blockchain ecosystem that has a lot to offer to dApp developers and users in terms of tools and infrastructure,” said Marina Guryeva, a director at Neon Labs. “At the same time, Solana is attractive to many due to its technical characteristics, and is perceived as an emerging market.”
- At the launch, the Neon EVM will initially run on the Solana testnet, which will immediately allow access to tools familiar to Ethereum users, including Metamask, Remix and Truffle, to work on Solana. The initial testnet launch will also mean popular dApps, including UniSwap, SushiSwap, 0x and MakerDAO, can be used on Solana. The Neon EVM will move to Solana’s mainnet in the third quarter of the year, pending the success of the testnet launch.
- Ethereum has struggled in recent times with surging demand in the DeFi space, giving potential rivals — often known as “Ethereum killers” — such as Cardano, Polkadot, Binance Smart Chain and Solana time to make their entry into the space. The Solana public blockchain, in particular, has been turning heads in the blockchain world due to transaction speeds of around 65,000 transactions per second, making it roughly 2,000 times faster than Ethereum and 40 times faster than Visa. The Neon EVM is the latest example of how both Ethereum and Solana can co-exist and is evidence that the smart-contract realm is not a zero-sum game.
- “Its deployment on the Solana blockchain will make it significantly easier for EVM projects to take advantage of the low fees, ultra-fast speeds and future-proof scalability of Solana,” said Solana CEO Anatoly Yakovenko. “Neon’s EVM scaling solution is a significant milestone and represents a commitment to a multi-chain future.”