Aurora EVM: The Advanced Version Of Ethereum Virtual Machine
Last week NEAR protocol launched an EVM called Aurora which can use to develop Ethereum compatible assets.
Have you ever thought about what makes Ethereum blockchain different from Bitcoin blockchain? Why Bitcoin blockchain is only capable of making financial transactions, but Ethereum is competent to execute smart-contract?
In the Ethereum blockchain, EVM (Ethereum virtual machine) plays an essential role that gives developers a sandboxed virtual stack embedded within each full Ethereum node that helps to create and implement smart contracts over Ethereum.
EVM can run any logical step of a computational function; that’s why we can say EVM is Turing complete. EVM can be implemented in various programming languages like C++, Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, etc.
EVM charges some gas to implement every instruction, which means you need to hold some Ethereum before using EVM. EVM protects itself from potential attacks by taking a gas fee, making a transaction for every instruction but high gas cost creating a barrier for developers to use EVM (Reference-1, Reference-2).
High cost is not the only issue that creating a barrier for developers and dApp users, but the low scalability of Ethereum blockchain is also making the same impact where the developer and dApp users suffer most. But what if I tell you that Aurora is the ultimate Ethereum Virtual Machine that can help not only developers but also users to overcome low scalability and high gas fee issues?
What is Aurora?
Aurora is an Ethereum Virtual Machine created by the stellar team at the NEAR Protocol to solve all the current Ethereum Virtual Machine problems by providing Ethereum Layer-2 Experience. In this article, we will discuss details about Aurora EVM.
Features of Aurora Ethereum virtual machine
After explosive growth in demand for Defi (decentralized finance) and NFT(Non-fungible token), the need for Ethereum blockchain also increased. As we all know, Ethereum is terrible at scaling, so we are expressing a surge in gas fees where Ethereum becomes slower, and these problems are creating a barrier for exiting or new users. Aurora can rectify these problems with its advanced features, so let’s discuss all of its features one by one.
- High throughput
Ethereum isn’t a sharded blockchain, so whenever a transaction is initiated, it has to wait in the queue because all the nodes of Ethereum can process one block at a time and it takes up to 30.31sec per block. Hence the increase of nodes in the Ethereum blockchain only helps increase security, not helps in transaction speed or scalability. Aurora allows for approx 10x increase in transaction throughput compared to Ethereum, which became possible for Nightshade.
- First confirmations
The time taken by the Ethereum blockchain to confirm a transaction depends on the gas fee, meaning a high gas fee can help for the first transaction, whereas a low gas fee means a slow transaction of up to 30min. But Aurora can help you to execute a transaction within 1–2 seconds.
- 1000x Reduction in gas costs
By leveraging the NEAR blockchain, Aurora will help to reduce gas fees up to 1000x and not grow even if the userbase will grow in the future.
- Trustless bridge
Aurora created a stable and trustless bridge to Ethereum. You can move all of your Ethereum assets to Aurora, including ERC-20 tokens (already available), NFTs, contract calls, and contract state (in development).
- Full compliance with Ethereum
If you’re asking yourself: what does it mean ‘Full compliance with Ethereum’ or whether Aurora is Ethereum virtual machine. It means Aurora EVM is created of NEAR protocol and NEAR isn’t created over Ethereum, but Aurora EVM is entirely compatible with Ethereum, so neither developers nor users need to use any additional tools or tokens to work with Aurora.
All the existing tools are compliant with Aurora, including Metamask, Hardhat, Truffle, etc. Furthermore, the Aurora base token is ETH. Users and devs are not forced to buy any additional useless tokens.
Conclusion:
Aurora EVM is still new because it just launched last week, but many well-known blockchain projects like 1inch, DODO, Chainlink, SnowSwap, Band protocol, NEAR protocol, DeFiner, and imToken collaborated with Aurora, exploring the next steps for unlocking these exciting benefits for themselves and their users. So we can assume that Aurora can be the best gift for Ethereum developers or users.
