Original Title: "MT Capital Research Report: Comprehensive Interpretation of Parallel EVM, Project Overview and Future Prospects"

Original Author: Xinwei MT Capital

TL;DR

· The necessity of parallel EVM lies in its ability to solve the efficiency problem of traditional EVM processing transactions in sequence. By allowing multiple operations to be executed simultaneously, it significantly improves the network's throughput and performance.

· The implementation methods of parallel EVM include scheduling-based concurrent processing, multi-threaded EVM instances, system-level sharding, and face technical challenges such as unreliable timestamps, blockchain determinism, and validator incentive orientation.

· Monad Labs aims to significantly improve the scalability and transaction speed of blockchain through its Layer 1 project, Monad, with unique technical features including the ability to process up to 10,000 transactions per second, 1-second block time, parallel execution capability, and the MonadBFT consensus mechanism.

· Sei V2 is an important upgrade of Sei Network, aiming to become the first fully parallelized EVM. It provides backward compatible EVM smart contracts, optimistic parallelization, new SeiDB data structure, and interoperability with existing chains, with the goal of significantly improving transaction processing speed and network scalability.

· Neon EVM is a platform on Solana that aims to provide efficient, secure, and decentralized environment for Ethereum dApps, allowing developers to easily deploy and run dApps while leveraging Solana's high throughput and low cost advantages.

· Lumio is a Layer 2 solution developed by Pontem Network. It innovatively addresses Ethereum's scalability challenges by uniquely supporting the Move VM used by EVM and Aptos, bringing the Web3 experience closer to the level of Web2.

· Eclipse is an Ethereum Layer 2 solution that uses SVM to accelerate transaction processing, adopts a modular rollup architecture, integrates Ethereum settlement, SVM smart contracts, Celestia data availability, and RISC Zero fraud proof.

· Solana utilizes its Sealevel technology to achieve parallel smart contract processing, Sui improves throughput with its Narwhal and Bullshark components, Fuel implements parallel transaction execution through the UTXO model, and Aptos uses the Block-STM engine to enhance transaction processing capabilities, all demonstrating different implementations and advantages of parallel technology in the blockchain field.

· The main challenges of adopting parallelism include solving data race and read-write conflict issues, ensuring compatibility with existing standards, adapting to new ecosystem interaction modes, and managing increased system complexity, especially in terms of security and resource allocation.

· Parallel EVM demonstrates tremendous potential in enhancing blockchain scalability and efficiency, marking a significant shift in blockchain technology by improving transaction processing capabilities through the simultaneous execution of transactions by multiple processors, breaking the limitations of traditional sequential transaction processing. While parallel EVM offers great potential, their successful implementation requires overcoming complex technical challenges and ensuring widespread adoption within the ecosystem.

Parallel EVM Basic Concepts

EVM Introduction

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the core component of the Ethereum blockchain, serving as its computational engine. It is a quasi-Turing complete machine that provides a runtime environment for executing smart contracts on the Ethereum network, which is crucial for maintaining trust and consistency throughout the entire Ethereum ecosystem.

EVM executes smart contracts by processing bytecode, which is a more fundamental form of the smart contract code typically written in high-level programming languages such as Solidity. These bytecodes consist of a series of opcodes that perform various functions, including arithmetic operations and data storage/retrieval. EVM runs as a stack machine, processing operations in a last-in-first-out manner, and each operation in EVM has an associated gas cost. The gas system measures the computational work required to execute operations, ensuring fair resource allocation and preventing network abuse.

In Ethereum, transactions play an important role in the functionality of the EVM. There are two types of transactions: one that leads to a message call and another that leads to contract creation. Contract creation results in the creation of a new contract account containing the compiled bytecode of the smart contract. When another account makes a message call to that contract, its bytecode is executed.

The architecture of EVM includes components such as bytecode, stack, memory, and storage. It has a dedicated memory space for temporarily storing data during execution, as well as a persistent storage space on the blockchain for storing data indefinitely. The design of EVM ensures a secure execution environment for smart contracts by isolating them to prevent reentry attacks and implementing various security measures such as gas and stack depth limits.

In addition, the influence of EVM extends beyond Ethereum and into a wider range of compatible chains. Although these chains may differ, they maintain compatibility with Ethereum-based applications, allowing them to seamlessly interact with Ethereum-based applications. These chains play a key role in various fields such as enterprise solutions, GameFi, and DeFi.

The Necessity of Parallel EVM

The necessity of parallel EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) lies in its ability to significantly improve the performance and efficiency of blockchain networks. Traditional EVM processes transactions in sequence, which not only consumes a lot of energy but also imposes a heavy workload on network validators. This processing method often results in high transaction costs and low efficiency, which is considered a major obstacle to the widespread adoption of blockchain.

Parallel EVM has completely changed the consensus process by allowing multiple operations to be executed simultaneously. The ability to execute in parallel greatly improves the network's throughput, thereby enhancing the performance and scalability of the entire blockchain. With Parallel EVM, blockchain networks can process more transactions in a shorter amount of time, effectively solving the common congestion and slow processing time issues of traditional blockchain systems.

Parallel EVM has significant impact on various aspects of blockchain technology:

· It provides a more energy-efficient and efficient transaction processing method. By reducing the workload of validators and the entire network, parallel EVM helps to build a more sustainable blockchain ecosystem.

· Improved scalability and increased throughput directly lead to lower transaction costs. Users will enjoy a more economical experience, making blockchain platforms more attractive to a wider audience.

· Processing multiple transactions simultaneously instead of sequentially means that dApps can run more smoothly even during periods of high network demand.

Implementation Method of Parallel EVM

In the current EVM architecture, the most precise read and write operations are sload and sstore, respectively used for reading and writing data from the state trie. Therefore, ensuring that different threads do not conflict on these two operations is a simple entry point for implementing parallel/concurrent EVM. In fact, there is a special type of transaction in Ethereum that includes a special structure called the "access list", which allows transactions to carry the storage addresses that will be read and modified. Therefore, this provides a good starting point for implementing a scheduling-based concurrent method.

Regarding system implementation, there are three common parallel/concurrent EVM forms:

1. Multi-threading of an EVM instance.

2. Multi-threading of multiple EVM instances on a single node.

Monad Labs

1.MonadBFT：

4.MonadDb：

Tayaswap

Ambient Finance

Shrimp Protocol

Catalyst

Swaap

Swaap is a market-neutral automated market maker (AMM). It combines oracles and dynamic spreads to provide sustainable returns for liquidity providers and cheaper prices for traders. The protocol greatly reduces impermanent loss and provides multi-asset pools.

Elixir

Elixir is a decentralized market-making protocol that interacts with centralized exchanges through API calls using market-making algorithms, providing liquidity for long-tail crypto assets.

Timeswap

Timeswap is a decentralized currency market protocol based on AMM, which does not use oracles or liquidators. Unlike Uniswap, borrowing on Timeswap involves trading tokens until repayment is complete. The lender provides asset A for borrowing, while "protecting" a certain amount of asset B used as collateral for the borrower. Users can adjust their risk profile to obtain higher interest rates with lower collateral ratios, and vice versa.

Poply

Poply is a community-based NFT marketplace that specifically targets the Monad chain, showcasing and empowering NFT collections created specifically for this chain. By using AI-generated art and user-friendly interfaces, it attracts individuals interested in unique NFTs to trade ERC-721 tokens here.

Switchboard

Switchboard is an unlicensed, customizable, multi-chain oracle protocol for general data feed and verifiable randomness. By allowing anyone to push any form of data, regardless of data type, it provides users with a one-stop service and helps drive the development of the next generation of decentralized applications.

Pyth Network

Pyth Network is the next-generation price oracle solution developed by Douro Labs. It aims to provide valuable on-chain financial market data, including cryptocurrencies, stocks, forex, and commodities, to projects, protocols, and the public through blockchain technology. The network aggregates first-party price data from over 70 trusted data providers and publishes it for use by smart contracts and other on-chain or off-chain applications.

AIT Protocol

AIT Protocol is an artificial intelligence data infrastructure that provides Web3 AI solutions. AIT's decentralized marketplace offers millions of cryptocurrency users a unique and extensive opportunity to participate in "earn while you train" tasks, which allows them to earn rewards while actively contributing to the development of artificial intelligence models.

Notifi

Notifi provides a universal communication layer for all Web3 projects, with plans to embed notification and messaging functionality into decentralized applications for interacting with users on digital and on-chain channels. The Notifi API allows developers to unlock complex communication infrastructure through a simple API, which can provide a native user experience for all applications in the world. Notifi Center offers users a customized notification experience, allowing them to view and manage all information in the Web3 world from mobile and web platforms. Notifi Push enables marketers to create cohesive multi-channel engagement to drive business growth and retain their user base.

ACryptoS

ACryptoS is an advanced encryption strategy platform, a multi-chain revenue aggregator optimizer and DEX, offering a variety of unique products including automatic compound single token treasury, dual token LP treasury, unique liquidity treasury, Balancer-V2 branch DEX, and stablecoin exchange. ACryptoS was initially launched on the BNB chain in November 2020 and has now expanded to 11 chains, deploying over 100 treasuries, aimed at supporting DeFi users and protocols.

MagmaDAO

MagmaDAO is a liquidity staking protocol controlled by a DAO, aimed at achieving fair token distribution through ecosystem competition airdrops. It is the first distributed validator outside of Ethereum, built on the fastest, cheapest, and most censorship-resistant EVM L1 Monad.

Wombat Exchange

Wombat Exchange is a multi-chain stablecoin trading platform with open liquidity pools, low slippage, and single-sided staking.

Wormhole

Wormhole is a decentralized universal messaging protocol that enables developers and users of cross-chain applications to leverage the advantages of multiple ecosystems.

DeMask Finance

DeMask Finance is an on-chain AMM protocol for trading between NFTs and ERC20 tokens. DeMask Finance supports the creation of NFT collections and NFT launchpads, paired with ETH and other tokens. The NFT decentralized exchange supports ERC-1155 NFTs or other tokens paired with ETH and ERC-20 tokens. The DeMask protocol aims to increase liquidity in the NFT market by providing an interface for seamless exchange between ERC20 tokens or native tokens and NFT collections. DeMask is an interconnected smart contract system where all users can create and own liquidity pools and trade in a fully automated manner. Each pool will hold a pair of assets, including a token and an NFT, providing a fixed price for instant trading. This also allows other contracts to estimate the average price of the two assets over time. Users who own liquidity pools will be rewarded when exchanging asset pairs.

Sei V2

Sei V2 is an important upgrade of Sei Network, which aims to become the first fully parallelized EVM. This upgrade will enable Sei to have the following features:

1. Backward compatibility of EVM smart contracts:

This means that developers can deploy pre-audited, EVM-compatible smart contracts on Sei without having to modify their code. This is extremely important for developers as it simplifies the process of migrating existing smart contracts from other blockchains such as Ethereum to Sei.

From a technical perspective, the Sei node will automatically import Geth - the Go implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Geth will be used to process Ethereum transactions, and any resulting updates (including state updates or calls to non-EVM related contracts) will be made through a special interface created by Sei for the EVM.

2. Optimistic parallelization:

It allows the blockchain to support parallelism without developers defining any dependencies. This means that all transactions can run in parallel, and when conflicts arise (such as transactions touching the same state), the chain will track the storage portions touched by each transaction and rerun those transactions in order. This process will recursively continue until all unresolved conflicts are resolved. Because transactions are ordered within blocks, this process is deterministic and simplifies the developer workflow while maintaining chain-level parallelism.

3.SeiDB：

It will introduce a new data structure called SeiDB to optimize the storage layer of the platform. The main goal of SeiDB is to prevent state bloat, which is the problem of the network becoming too heavy with data, while simplifying the state synchronization process for new nodes. This design aims to improve the overall performance and scalability of the Sei blockchain.

Sei V2 achieves this goal by transforming the traditional IAVL tree into a dual-component system - state storage and state commitment. This change significantly reduces latency and disk usage, and Sei V2 also plans to switch to using PebbleDB to improve the read and write performance of multi-threaded access.

4. Interoperability with existing chains:

Sei V2 allows for seamless integration between the EVM and any other execution environment supported by Sei, providing developers with a smoother experience and easy access to local tokens and other chain functionalities such as staking. It will also create a new component to support EVM smart contracts. These EVM smart contracts will benefit from all the changes made to consensus and parallelization, and will also be able to interact with existing Cosmwasm smart contracts.

From a performance perspective, Sei V2 will provide a throughput of 28,300 batch transactions per second, with a block time and finality of 390 milliseconds. This allows Sei to support more users than existing blockchains, provide a better user experience, and offer lower transaction costs.

The main upgrade progress of Sei V2 is nearing code completion. After review, this upgrade will be released on the public testnet in the first quarter of 2024 and will be deployed on the mainnet in the first half of 2024.

Neon

Neon EVM utilizes the capabilities of the Solana blockchain to provide efficient environment for Ethereum dApps. It runs as a smart contract within Solana, allowing developers to deploy Ethereum dApps with minimal or no code changes and benefit from Solana's advanced features. The architecture and operations of Neon EVM focus on security, decentralization, and sustainability, providing Ethereum developers with a seamless opportunity to transition to the Solana environment. Leveraging Solana's advantages such as low fees, high transaction speed, and the ability to execute transactions in parallel, Neon EVM offers high throughput and cost reduction. The main components of the Neon EVM ecosystem include:

1. Neon EVM Program:

It is an EVM compiled into Berkeley Packet Filter bytecode, running on Solana. It processes Ethereum-like transactions (Neon transactions) on Solana, following Ethereum rules. The Neon EVM is configured through decentralized multi-signature EVM accounts, allowing participants to modify Neon EVM code and set parameters.

The process of processing transactions in the Neon EVM involves several key steps. First, users initiate Ethereum-like transactions (N-tx) through a compatible Ethereum wallet. These transactions are encapsulated into Solana transactions (S-tx) through Neon Proxy and then passed to the Neon EVM program hosted on Solana. The Neon EVM program unpacks the transaction, verifies the user's signature, loads the EVM state (including account data and smart contract code), executes the transaction in the Solana BPF (Berkeley Packet Filter) environment, and updates Solana's state to reflect the new Neon EVM state.

2.Neon Proxy: It enables Ethereum dApps to be ported to Neon with minimal reconfiguration. Neon Proxy packages EVM transactions into Solana transactions, provided in the form of a containerized solution for ease of use. Operators running Neon Proxy servers facilitate the execution of Ethereum-like transactions on Solana, accepting NEON tokens as gas fees and other payments within the Solana ecosystem.

Eclipse

Lumio

Solana

Sui

The parallel technology features of Sui make it a high-efficiency, high-throughput blockchain platform suitable for various Web3 applications and use cases. These significant features work together to improve the efficiency and throughput of its network:

1. Narwhal and Bullshark components: These two components are crucial to Sui's consensus mechanism. Narwhal serves as the memory pool, accelerating transaction processing, improving network efficiency, and ensuring the availability of data submitted to Bullshark (the consensus engine). Bullshark is responsible for sorting the data provided by Narwhal, using Byzantine fault tolerance to validate the validity of transactions and distribute them in the network.

2. Asset Ownership Model: In the Sui network, assets can be owned by a single owner or shared by multiple owners. Assets owned by a single owner can be quickly and freely transferred within the network, while shared assets require verification through a consensus system. This asset ownership system not only improves the efficiency of transaction processing, but also allows developers to create multiple types of assets for their applications.

3. Distributed Computing: Sui's design allows the network to scale resources based on demand, making it similar to cloud services. This means that as demand for the Sui network increases, network validators can add more processing power to maintain network stability and keep gas fees low.

4. Sui Move Programming Language: Sui Move is the native programming language of Sui, designed specifically for creating high-performance, secure, and feature-rich applications. It is based on the Move language and aims to improve the shortcomings of smart contract programming languages, enhance the security of smart contracts, and improve the efficiency of programmers.

5. Programmable Transaction Blocks (PTB): PTB in Sui is a complex and composable sequence of transactions that can access any public on-chain Move function in all smart contracts. This design provides powerful guarantees for payment or finance-oriented applications.

6. Horizontal Scalability: Sui's scalability is not limited to transaction processing, but also includes storage. This allows developers to define complex assets with rich attributes and store them directly on the chain, without the need for indirect off-chain storage to save gas fees.

Fuel

In the Fuel network, "parallel transaction execution" is a key technology that enables the network to efficiently process a large number of transactions. The core of this parallel execution is achieved through the use of strict state access lists, which are based on the UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) model. This model is a fundamental element in Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies.

Fuel introduces the ability to execute parallel transactions in the UTXO model. By using a strict list of state accesses, Fuel is able to process transactions in parallel, utilizing more CPU threads and cores that are typically idle in single-threaded blockchains. This allows Fuel to provide more computational power, state access, and transaction throughput than single-threaded blockchains.

Fuel solves the concurrency problem in the UTXO model. In Fuel, users do not directly sign UTXOs, but instead sign contract IDs to indicate their intention to interact with the contract. Therefore, users do not directly change the state, which would result in the UTXOs being spent. Instead, block producers will be responsible for determining how various transactions in the block affect the overall state and thus the contract UTXOs. The spent contract UTXOs create new UTXOs with the same core features but updated storage and balance.

In order to achieve parallel transaction execution, Fuel has developed a specific virtual machine - FuelVM. The design focus of FuelVM is to reduce wasteful processing in traditional blockchain virtual machine architecture, while providing developers with more potential design space. It combines years of experience and improvement suggestions from the Ethereum ecosystem, which cannot be implemented on Ethereum due to the need to maintain compatibility with past versions.

Aptos

Aptos Blockchain uses a parallel execution engine called Block-STM (Software Transactional Memory) to enhance its transaction processing capabilities. This technology allows Aptos to execute transactions in a predetermined order within each block and allocate them to different processor threads during the execution process. The core idea of this approach is to record the memory locations modified by the transactions while executing all transactions. After all transaction results are verified, if a transaction is found to access a memory location modified by a previous transaction, the transaction will be invalidated. Then, the aborted transaction will be re-executed, and this process will be repeated until all transactions are executed.

Unlike other parallel execution engines, Block-STM maintains the atomicity of transactions without needing to know the data to be read/written beforehand. This makes it easier for developers to build highly parallelized applications. Block-STM supports richer atomicity than other parallel execution environments, which typically require operations to be split into multiple transactions (breaking logical atomicity). By reducing latency and improving cost efficiency, Block-STM enhances user experience.

In addition, Aptos also adopts a consensus mechanism called AptosBFTv4, which is a production blockchain BFT protocol that has been rigorously proven for correctness. The protocol optimizes responsiveness and can provide low latency and high throughput, fully leveraging the advantages of the underlying network. AptosBFTv4 adopts a pipeline design similar to a processor, ensuring maximum resource utilization at each step. Therefore, a single node may participate in many aspects of consensus, from selecting transactions to be included in a block to executing another set of transactions, writing the output of another set of transactions to storage, and authenticating the output of another set of transactions. This means that throughput is only limited by the slowest stage, not the sequential combination of all stages.

Challenge

Technical Challenges

Generally speaking, the core challenge of using parallel or concurrent methods is the problem of data race, read-write conflict, or data hazard. All of these terms describe the same problem: different threads or operations attempt to read and modify the same data at the same time. Implementing efficient and reliable parallel systems requires solving complex technical problems, especially in ensuring predictable and conflict-free execution of parallel operations on thousands of decentralized nodes. In addition, the challenge of technical compatibility is to ensure that new parallel processing methods can be compatible with existing EVM standards and smart contract code.

Ecological Adaptability

For developers, they may need to learn new tools and methods to maximize the advantages of parallel EVM. In addition, users also need to adapt to possible new interaction modes and performance characteristics. This requires all participants in the entire ecosystem (including developers, users, and service providers) to have a certain understanding and adaptability to new technologies. At the same time, a strong blockchain ecosystem relies not only on its technical characteristics, but also on extensive developer support and rich applications. To succeed in the market, new technologies such as parallel EVM need to establish sufficient network effects to attract the participation of developers and users.

System complexity increases

Parallel EVM requires efficient network communication to support data synchronization across multiple nodes. Network latency or synchronization failures may result in inconsistent transaction processing, increasing the complexity of system design. To effectively leverage the advantages of parallel processing, the system needs to intelligently manage and allocate computing resources. This may involve dynamically allocating loads between different nodes and optimizing the use of memory and storage. Developing smart contracts and applications that support parallel processing is more complex than traditional sequential execution models. Developers need to consider the characteristics and limitations of parallel execution, which may make the coding and debugging process more difficult. In a parallel execution environment, security vulnerabilities may be amplified, as a security issue may affect multiple parallel transactions. Therefore, stricter security auditing and testing processes are required.

Future Outlook

Parallel EVM has shown great potential in improving the scalability and efficiency of blockchain. These parallel EVMs represent an important shift in blockchain technology, aiming to enhance transaction processing capabilities by executing transactions simultaneously on multiple processors. This approach breaks through the traditional sequential transaction processing method, allowing for higher throughput and lower latency, which is crucial for the scalability and efficiency of blockchain networks.

The successful implementation of Parallel EVM largely depends on the foresight and skills of developers, especially in the design of smart contracts and data structures. These elements are crucial in determining whether transactions can be executed in parallel. Developers must consider parallel processing from the beginning of the project, ensuring that their design enables different transactions to run independently without interference.

Parallel EVM also maintains compatibility with the Ethereum ecosystem, which is crucial for developers and users who are already involved in Ethereum-based applications. This compatibility ensures a smooth transition and integration of existing dApps, which is a challenge for systems like DAG that typically require significant modifications to existing applications.

Developing parallel EVM is seen as a key step in addressing the fundamental limitations of blockchain scalability. These innovations are expected to prepare the future of blockchain networks, enabling them to keep up with the growing demand and become the cornerstone of the next generation Web3 infrastructure. Although parallel EVMs offer tremendous potential, their successful implementation requires overcoming complex technical challenges and ensuring widespread adoption of the ecosystem.

This article is from a submission and does not represent the views of BlockBeats.

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