Neon EVM Set to Go Live on Mainnet: Welcome to a New Era of Ethereum Scalability on Solana
TLDR:
- We’re launching Neon EVM to Mainnet on Dec. 12, 2022, making it the first EVM on Solana. Ethereum-based applications will now have access to Solana’s scalability and liquidity without any changes to their codebase.
- We’ve tested EVM performance through multiple use cases, and the platform now includes the infrastructure and capabilities to support production level development. Notable Ethereum-based projects starting to build on Neon include Aave, Curve, and Sobal.
- Looking beyond Mainnet, we’re working to develop interoperability with Solana smart contracts, full ecosystem compatibility, integration with additional major Ethereum tools and services, and an early grants program.
- Our team is inviting all Ethereum projects to deploy on Neon EVM and is excited to see a new class of dApps thrive.
Live on Mainnet on 12.12.22
Neon EVM’s upcoming launch to Mainnet was made possible through our team’s hard work and ingenuity this past year against some of the most challenging technological hurdles in blockchain.
During this year’s Solana BreakPoint event our CEO and the Founder of Neon Labs, Marina Guryeva, was proud to share the behind-the-scenes work that had brought Neon EVM to this point.
Marina also provided her thoughts on our upcoming Mainnet launch, saying:
“Neon EVM unites the best of two worlds, Ethereum and Solana, and puts to rest the Ethereum killer narrative once and for all. Ethereum-based projects can, for the first time, tap into the previously inaccessible audience and liquidity of Solana without needing to rewrite their code in Rust. As a result, users will now get to enjoy enhanced user experiences on Solana without losing out on Ethereum’s battle-tested dApps.”
Neon EVM is the first and only EVM on Solana, and it will have a profound impact on both the Ethereum and Solana ecosystems. For Ethereum projects aiming to expand into new ecosystems, differing programming languages are no longer a concern. Developers familiar with Solidity, Vyper, and the existing Ethereum smart contract languages can now use Neon EVM to deploy on Solana. Ethereum projects can now tap into Solana and access its large user base, which averaged 20.5M monthly active wallet addresses in the past three months. On the flip side, the Solana ecosystem will soon have access to Ethereum’s massive suite of dApps.
“Rather than looking at Ethereum, Solana, and other emerging L1s as disconnected blockchains, through Neon EVM’s launch we aim to foster multi-chain ecosystem growth by leveraging each blockchain’s respective strengths,” Marina continued.
The State of Technology
Our launch to Mainnet is just the start. Below we’ll dig into the state of the Neon technology and report on topics such as dApp testing, performance testing, operators, the Neon Proxy, NeonPass, NeonScan, Tracer API, transaction indexing, tokens, gas prices, and governance.
dApp Testing
In recent months, we’ve partnered with the likes of MixBytes, Robonomics Network, and Zpoken to deploy and test popular Ethereum dApps on Neon EVM. A wide array of dApps were selected to test Neon’s EVM compatibility, including Compound, Uniswap v2, AAVE, Curve, Sobal, and Robonomics’ liability contract. All use cases explored were successful, and the underlying smart contracts performed correctly and efficiently.
Read more about each performance testing scenario in the articles linked below:
- MixBytes Successfully Deploys Uniswap V2 Protocol on Neon EVM
- Robonomics Network’s Liability Contract is Successfully Executed on Neon EVM
- Zpoken Successfully Deploys the Compound Protocol on Neon EVM
Performance Testing
We ran a series of synthetic tests and achieved results of 2000+ TPS on Neon EVM. Synthetic tests only measure the speed of the Neon EVM smart contract without Neon Proxy.
Neon Proxy
The Neon Proxy is an essential tool for packaging a Neon transaction into a Solana transaction. It improves the user experience for operators in the Neon ecosystem, and it allows Ethereum dApps to be ported to Neon with virtually no code or configuration changes as all the “translating” is handled by the proxy.
Learn more about the Neon Proxy.
Operators
Operators are a key component of the Neon ecosystem. After a user submits a transaction to Neon EVM, no additional steps are required to execute the instructions or store the data required for a transaction. The complexities are automatically handled by Neon Operators and the operator’s software. The transaction type ultimately determines the cost of a transaction. Operators run Neon Proxy, which helps facilitate seamless execution of Ethereum-like transactions on Solana. This allows Ethereum dApps to be ported to Neon with no code change.
Mainnet operators will be listed here.
NeonPass
NeonPass will be used to transfer assets between Solana and Neon. It’s important to recognize that NeonPass sends the original SPL asset from the source to the target address. This “transfer” feature differs greatly from the “bridging” functionality of standard blockchain bridges. Bridges lock the original assets in smart contracts and mint “synthetic” assets in the destination blockchain ecosystems. In the context of Solana-Ethereum blockchain bridges, these synthetic assets (known as SPL-wrapped assets) are SPL versions of their associated ERC-20 counterparts.
Tracer API
Tracer API is an extension for the Neon Proxy. We implemented a tracing API to help developers better test, debug, and understand their smart contracts on Neon EVM. The API will give developers a full externality trace on any transaction executed on the chain. They’ll be able to rerun historic transactions, run new transactions on historic states, and analyze the state of the blockchain after the execution of each instruction.
Wallets
Neon is an EVM environment and currently supports MetaMask.
Learn more about how to configure MetaMask.
Learn how to integrate MetaMask with your Neon dApp.
Block Explorers
Our team has successfully integrated with NeonScan to provide Block Explorer infrastructure to the ecosystem. NeonScan lets users search the Neon blockchain for information such as block data, transactions, and addresses in a standard block explorer interface.
Transaction Indexing
Aleph has developed a NeonAnalytics dashboard. The dashboard allows for data querying on the blockchain resulting in streamlined dApp development for project teams.
In an effort to further transaction indexing capabilities on Neon EVM, integration with The Graph protocol is underway to bring high-efficiency blockchain app querying to Neon EVM. Our team plans to run a Graph Node and will continue to build out tracing API services for usage by dApps on Neon EVM.
For more information on the Graph protocol and how it works, take a look at The Graph docs.
Tokens
NEON is an SPL token used to pay for transactions and participate in DAO governance on Neon EVM.
Gas Price
Neon EVM inherits Solana’s low transaction fees. A Neon transfer costs 0.000015 SOL / tx and a simple swap costs 0.0002 SOL / tx.
Governance
Neon DAO will be live on day 1 of Mainnet launch. It will function as a normal DAO and use NEON as the governance token. Each token is equivalent to one governance vote.
Projects Being Built on Neon
Ambassador Program
An Ambassador Program is coming soon. Please stay tuned.
Community
Our community has always been a vital part of our success, and we couldn’t be happier with all the trust and patience you have shown us throughout all of our struggles to make this happen. For this reason, we feel obligated to deliver and to give even more to our community. We are in this together. Expect a lot from us in the upcoming weeks and months. Let’s grow even bigger and continue making the difference.
Beyond Mainnet
The road to Mainnet focused on solidifying the Neon EVM proof of concept, testing key dApps,
Neon EVM stabilization, ERC-20 with SPL support, passing security audits from Halborn and Ackee, rolling out NeonPass, and launching NeonScan.
Now in Mainnet, we will bring our attention to early dApp deployments, the Neon DAO governance roll-out, maintaining a Mainnet-ready Neon EVM, integration with The Graph,
Pyth, and Chainlink, NFT interoperability with Solana, and whitelisted operators.
Looking beyond Mainnet, our team will focus on exploring interoperability with Solana smart contracts, Neon ecosystem growth, the grants program launch, developing a decentralized operators network, Neon EVM full compatibility Ethereum, and supporting top industry ecosystem tools and services.
Calling on All Projects to Deploy on Neon
It’s time to start deploying your own smart contracts to Neon EVM. If you have any issues or need additional guidance, check out our Neon Docs or reach out to a team member on Discord. Our website and GitHub also contain great resources for those interested in learning more about Neon and experimenting with the platform.
