Ethereum Virtual Machine
Ethereum, which provides the most liquidity in DeFi and GameFi, is currently the leader in the dApp field. The Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) is one of the most popular VMs, and the majority of blockchain developers develop smart contracts for it. All popular blockchains include the EVM to attract developers from other ecosystems and make it easier to launch popular dApps on them without the need to completely rewrite code for this purpose.
It’s thus perfectly reasonable for Everscale to have EVM support too, to grow its developer community and increase the diversity of its dApps, especially since Everscale is known for its security and minimal fees for its use, which might be a major selling point for developers coming to the network.
A blockchain created for security and scalability
The main difference between Everscale and most blockchains in the industry is its two-layer blockchain system.
First layer: The masterchain is the main blockchain, responsible for the selection of validators, verification, and synchronization of the main network data. It exists only in the singular.
Second layer: A workchain (also known as a shard) is a blockchain that can change its structure to meet the needs of individual dApps in the Everscale ecosystem. Workchains can have a separate VM, and their own logic. The compatibility of all workchains must be verified by the masterchain.
The number of workchains in Everscale is limited to 65,535.
Both the masterchain and workchains, depending on the load, are divided into threads — chains of blocks generated by their own subgroup of validators. When the load increases, the blockchain splits into threads; when it decreases, the threads merge into one. This solution provides nearly infinite scalability and no competition for space on the block.
As a result, the gas price on Everscale is very low and does not depend on the network’s workload, unlike Ethereum, with which a high gas price and huge fees for including a profitable transaction into a block have become synonymous.
To realize its potential, Everscale uses its own virtual machine — EsVM. Smart contracts written for EsVM are not compatible with EVM, and vice versa.
The EVM based on Everscale will give a boost to both blockchains. It means the ability to run a huge number of Ethereum smart contracts on Everscale, utilizing the technological advantages of the latter, and all this with minimum fees and instant data sharing between workchains.
Features of integration
There are plans to create a separate workchain for integration with EVM. It will be launched in Q4 2022.
This has been made possible thanks to improvements to the Everscale node software and the implementation of the REMP messaging protocol. All transactions in the Everscale EVM will be processed by separately assigned validators. This will lead to an increase in nodes, and therefore to greater decentralization.
To make Ethereum sequential logic possible on Everscale with its parallel transaction processing paradigm, a lot of changes need to be made to the structure of the workchain.
First of all, the asynchronous blockchain must be made synchronous by removing multithreading. Next, access needs to be provided to other accounts within a transaction. Currently, in Everscale, only the smart contract deployed in an account has access to it. On top of that, a lot of other changes are required that are less significant.
This kind of modification will result in the loss of Everscale’s significant advantage of infinite scalability, but on the other hand, EVM performance growth can be achieved by running many of these workchains in parallel.
Prospects for EVM Integration in Everscale
For developers, the launch of an EVM compatible workchain is of particular interest. After all, the legacy in the form of Ethereum’s ready-made servicessurpasses all other blockchains combined. Implementing new services will be much cheaper.
As a unique Everscale feature, it will be possible to call smart contracts from an EVM compatible workchain to other Everscale workchains and vice versa, creating a homogeneous environment for smart contract execution and enabling real EVM integration into Everscale, as well as making it possible to create synchronous, asynchronous, and combined applications within one blockchain or to extend existing ones. This will open up incredible prospects not available in any of the solutions currently existing on the market.
