Parity 10th Anniversary: REVM Opens the Door to Polkadot for Ethereum Developers!

Today marks the 10th anniversary of Parity's founding!

This year also marks the fifth anniversary of the Polkadot mainnet launch.

Over these five years, Polkadot has evolved from a pioneering multi-chain architecture experiment into an infrastructure platform with a complete governance system, scalable parallel execution capabilities, and stable operation for over 1,800 days.

This year, there is a milestone that deserves special recognition—the launch of REVM!

This will mark the first time that Polkadot truly becomes a smart contract platform "available to Ethereum developers." It is not just a technical introduction, but also a fulfillment of the ecosystem's vision.

We are entering an era where EVM and PolkaVM dual VMs coexist, and developer pathways are fully integrated.

Polkadot has stood behind the EVM source code from the very beginning

Many people think that Polkadot is a "multi-chain infrastructure written in Rust using Substrate," and that it has never had anything to do with EVM. But the truth is quite the opposite.

Before creating Polkadot, Dr. Gavin Wood, the founder of Polkadot, was already one of the core technical drivers of Ethereum. He is not only the author of the Ethereum Yellow Paper, but also the designer of EVM and Solidity, as well as the main developer of the earliest C++ client.

Subsequently, he and his team developed Parity Ethereum (later renamed OpenEthereum), which was the first Ethereum client written in Rust and was once regarded as a "milestone in improving Ethereum's performance and security."

It was precisely on the basis of these accumulations that Polkadot was born. The Substrate framework itself is a systematic reconstruction and upgrade of these concepts.

If Ethereum defined programmability, then Polkadot is redefining "composability."

The evolution of the Polkadot relay chain is paving the way for the Polkadot Hub

The core consensus layer in Polkadot's design—the relay chain—initially took on too many functions: security, governance, staking, account management... These responsibilities are gradually being migrated to system-level parachains in Polkadot 2.0, ultimately forming: the relay chain provides security and cross-chain infrastructure, while the Polkadot Hub becomes a one-stop entry point for developers and users.

The Polkadot Hub will integrate modules for staking, governance, accounts, assets, smart contracts, and more, and for the first time support a dual virtual machine architecture:

• PolkaVM: Native RISC-V architecture, featuring high performance, controllable resource metering, and multi-language adaptation.
• REVM: Rewritten in Rust, 100% compatible with the EVM and Solidity toolchain.

This is not only an architectural upgrade but also a leap forward in developer experience.

What exactly can REVM bring?

Let's clarify with three questions:

1️⃣ What can REVM do?

• Supports direct deployment of Solidity contracts without modification
• Fully compatible with Ethereum ecosystem development tools (Metamask, Hardhat, Foundry, Remix)
• Rapidly introduces mainstream protocols (Chainlink, The Graph, Uniswap, etc.)
• Directly reuses Ethereum's existing user base, liquidity, and service providers

2️⃣ What makes REVM different?

• Implemented in Rust, making it faster, safer, and easier to scale
• Modular integration with the Polkadot SDK, seamlessly connecting with on-chain governance and resource scheduling
• Higher TPS and lower latency than typical L2s, suitable for DeFi and high-frequency DApps

3️⃣ What results can REVM bring?

• Lowers the migration barrier for developers, allowing millions of ETH engineers to use Polkadot directly
• Rapidly expands on-chain applications, unleashing network effects and liquidity
• Coexists with PolkaVM, providing different VM options for different scenarios
• Can continuously keep up with new Ethereum ecosystem standards, new opcodes, and new cryptographic primitives

The combination of Polkadot SDK and REVM provides Solidity engineers with a brand-new dapp platform! You can think of the Polkadot SDK as Lego bricks for the Web3 world:

• Want governance? Add a governance pallet.
• Want an asset module? Connect balances.
• Want to support smart contracts? Use REVM or PolkaVM.

REVM will soon be officially integrated into the Polkadot SDK as a pallet module. Chain developers only need to enable the module and set parameters to have full EVM capabilities.

More importantly: REVM and PolkaVM can run simultaneously on the same chain. The system will automatically recognize the VM type based on the contract code's file header, execute them uniformly, and ensure they do not interfere with each other. This provides developers with unprecedented freedom.

The value hub of the future multi-chain world will start with REVM

With REVM, Polkadot is not just "a place where Ethereum contracts can be deployed"—it will become:

• A liquidity router that can freely schedule assets across chains
• A DApp host platform that supports multiple virtual machines and multi-language operation
• A composable execution environment that allows applications to easily span Rollups, parachains, and Layer0

Perhaps today you deploy a stablecoin on Ethereum, and tomorrow you can seamlessly call it cross-chain to a parachain supporting zk scenarios, or expand more complex functions in another VM environment. All of this becomes possible on Polkadot.

In conclusion: REVM is the best gift for developers on Polkadot's fifth anniversary

If you are a Solidity developer who was once interested in Polkadot but had doubts—now, the launch of REVM has paved the way for you.

You no longer need to adapt to a new language, understand the Runtime, or restructure the account system. You can continue to use your familiar tools, languages, and ways of thinking to build applications for the next-generation multi-chain ecosystem.

Ten years ago, Gavin Wood and the core developers at ETHcore (now Parity) redefined how blockchains connect.

Ten years later, we have finally made it possible for every Ethereum developer to start anew on Polkadot.

Welcome to Polkadot Hub—REVM is waiting for you to deploy your first line of code!