Project Aurelius: What does it take to implement EVM into a blockchain?
In June 2022, Electroneum announced that work was planned to integrate the Electroneum blockchain with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), bringing smart contract capabilities to the Electroneum network. Today, as the internal blockchain development team approaches the final development stages of Project Aurelius (the 6th version of the Electroneum blockchain), and begin several weeks of rigorous testing, we’re providing you with an outline of some of the key milestones from the project and what remains to be done. But first, let’s take a quick look back at why the decision was made to integrate with EVM.
Integrating the Electroneum blockchain with EVM should provide several benefits, including increased interoperability, access to a larger developer community, and the ability to leverage the functionality of the EVM for executing smart contracts and blockchain-based applications. By tapping into this large community of talented developers and enabling them to build and deploy smart contracts and blockchain-based applications in a faster and cheaper way, we’re confident we will begin to see the Electroneum ecosystem expand in new directions.
In addition to the EVM integration itself, the Electroneum blockchain is undergoing a significant upgrade to the technology that underpins the network. As outlined in our previous article, the Electroneum blockchain is transitioning to a brand new consensus architecture called Istanbul Byzantine Fault Tolerant (IBFT), which will allow users to complete transactions in just five seconds with instant finality. This, alongside the new and upcoming fee structure (which will be announced at a later date), should place Electroneum amongst one of the most favoured blockchains to build and deploy solutions upon.
The integration with EVM will also allow the Electroneum blockchain to interact with other EVM-compatible networks, such as Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Avalanche, Cardano, Solana, Polygon, and many more! Improving the interoperability of the Electroneum blockchain has the potential to offer several benefits, including:
● Enhanced functionality: Users should be able to access a wider range of features and services. For example, an application built on the Electroneum blockchain could soon refer to data housed by an oracle on another blockchain, providing the ability to build complex processes that will fuel future Web 3.0 applications.
● Improved security: Interoperability can also improve security by enabling cross-chain transactions. This can reduce the risk of a single point of failure, as transactions can be processed across multiple blockchains.
● Greater decentralisation: Connecting blockchains can help to promote further decentralisation by enabling users to access different networks and protocols. This can reduce the dominance of a single blockchain and promote a more distributed ecosystem.
● Increased innovation: Interoperability can foster innovation by enabling developers to build new applications and services that leverage the capabilities of multiple blockchains. This can lead to the creation of new business models and revenue streams.
Despite being an incredibly complex journey, the Electroneum blockchain development team have provided a simplified outline of some of the key milestones they’ve been working through since before the EVM announcement was made back in June 2022.
Architect the smartchain system (Complete):
The initial phase involved designing and planning the architecture of the smartchain system. This step focused on identifying the necessary components and frameworks to build a scalable and secure blockchain infrastructure for Electroneum. A smartchain system is a type of blockchain technology that enables the creation of automated blockchain-based applications, powered by smart contracts. Smartchain systems use consensus algorithms and cryptography to ensure the security, transparency, and immutability of transactions. One of the key features of smartchain systems is the ability to program self-executing smart contracts that can automatically execute the terms of an agreement between parties when certain conditions are met. This can streamline and automate many types of transactions, such as payments, supply chain management, and identity verification.
Introduce an EVM client (Complete):
An EVM client is a software application that allows users to interact with the Ethereum blockchain network. It provides an interface to send and receive transactions on the Ethereum network, as well as to deploy and interact with smart contracts. The client communicates with other nodes on the network to ensure that all transactions and smart contract executions are recorded on the blockchain. Configuring an EVM client for a new Electroneum blockchain involves modifying the client’s configuration files to specify network parameters and RPC settings. Once configured, the client can be connected to the network, synchronized, and tested for correct functionality. Finally, smart contracts can be deployed on the network using the EVM client’s RPC interface.
Amalgamate the IBFT consensus model within our validator model (Complete):
To ensure secure and efficient consensus, the IBFT consensus model was integrated into the validator model. This model enhances the consensus algorithm by providing Byzantine fault tolerance and improved transaction finality. To learn more about the benefits of IBFT, head over to our previous article. In summary, the IBFT consensus model will enable transactions on the Electroneum blockchain to complete within just five seconds, with instant finality. Ethereum on the other hand requires six block confirmations to reach finality, which can take around one minute. Meanwhile, Bitcoin can take anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes to reach finality, requiring 3–6 blocks to complete before finality can be reached.
Repurpose an EVM-based block explorer (Complete):
While EVM block explorers share many features with Electroneum’s existing block explorers, they offer some unique functionality that sets them apart. These include the ability to view smart contracts and their associated data, comprehensive support for ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens, detailed information about gas usage, and more detailed statistics about the Ethereum network. You can see an example of the new smartchain block explorer here.
Document the smartchain project (Complete):
Documentation of any kind of software platform is crucial for promoting adoption amongst third-party developers, saving time and resources, encouraging innovation, and facilitating support and maintenance. To facilitate understanding and adoption, comprehensive documentation of the Electroneum smartchain project has been created. This documentation includes technical specifications, guidelines, and best practices for developers and users.[RP1] [JM2] [JM3] Some of this documentation can already be found in the Electroneum Github, whilst other forms of documentation will continue to be fed onto Github by the Electroneum blockchain development team after the launch of Project Aurelius.
Build out the testnet infrastructure (Complete):
A testnet infrastructure is a separate network used by developers to test new features, applications, and upgrades before they are deployed on the main network, otherwise known as a mainnet. Testnets are typically designed to mimic the functionality of the mainnet, but with a few key differences to allow for experimentation and testing without risking live tokens. They instead use ‘testnet tokens’ that can be acquired for free via a network faucet (yes, like a tap!). By using a testnet infrastructure, developers can identify and fix bugs, improve performance, and ensure the stability and security of their applications before launching them on the mainnet. A testnet infrastructure for Project Aurelius has already been established on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Please note: ‘Testnet tokens’ or ‘Testnet ETN’ are for developers only. They do not represent real world ETN, nor are they tradeable.
Build a smartchain token bridge (Complete):
After the launch of Project Aurelius, when a user opens and syncs their wallet for the first time, it will initiate an automatic transfer of their ETN via the smartchain token bridge onto the new blockchain version.
This automated transfer will take a varying amount of time dependent on whether their ETN is stored on the current blockchain (Flow V5), or on a previous version of the blockchain. Details of all Electroneum versions can be found on Github.
Further details about the migration process will be provided in due course. Please keep an eye out for this on our social media channels, found at the bottom of this article.
Test the blockchain system at scale (In Progress):
Blockchain testing verifies the functionality, performance, security, and reliability of blockchain-based systems. It involves unit, integration, functional, performance, security, and regression testing to ensure the quality and reliability of these systems. Extensive testing of the new blockchain version is already underway to assess its performance, security, and scalability under real-world conditions. Based on the test results, necessary modifications and refinements will be implemented to optimise the smartchain’s capabilities. Further testing will also be undertaken to assess the performance, security and reliability of the wider Electroneum ecosystem,
Summary
Complete:
● Architect the smartchain system
● Introduce an EVM client
● Amalgamate the IBFT consensus model with the EVM client
● Repurpose an EVM-based block explorer
● Document the smartchain project
● Build out the testnet infrastructure
● Build smartchain token bridges
In Progress:
● Test the blockchain system at scale
This is one of the most exciting projects in the history of the Electroneum blockchain. The introduction of smart contract capabilities, in addition to five-second transaction speeds with instant finality, will not only make Electroneum one of the fastest, most secure, and greenest blockchains in existence today, but it will provide third-party developers with one of the quickest and cheapest ways of deploying blockchain-based applications.
We hope you enjoyed reading this update. In the coming weeks, we plan to provide further details on the build of Project Aurelius, and explore and share some of the potential use cases for the new smartchain. Stay tuned for our next updates by following us on social media:
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