Neon Labs to bring EVM to Solana network in December

Neon Labs plans to deploy an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), an Ethereum smart contract layer, on the Solana blockchain on Dec. 12. The solution will allow developers to port Ethereum-based decentralized applications (DApps) to the Solana ecosystem.

The new solution – also known as Neon EVM – aims to bring support for Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to allow developers to write Ethereum applications on top of Solana. Based on the object-oriented programming language Solidity, EVM has lately become the most widely adopted computing standard for developing smart contracts.

Built on top of Solana, Neon’s implementation will let developers deploy Ethereum-based smart contract applications on the Solana platform. Currently, Solana’s smart contract framework is not EVM-compatible, which makes developing Ethereum apps on Solana impossible. Neon wants to change that by adopting the developer tools and compute layer present on Ethereum, thus easing the way for Ethereum developers to expand to Solana.

“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,” said Marina Guryeva, Neon Labs CEO and Founder. “As a result, users will now get to enjoy enhanced user experiences on Solana without losing out on Ethereum’s battle-tested DApps.”

In 2021, Neon Labs raised $40 million from Jump Capital, IDEO CoLab Ventures, Solana Capital, and others.

Other Ethereum-based projects, such as Aave, Curve, and Sobal, are gearing up for launch on Neon EVM once its mainnet launch goes live.  

Also, Polygon recently revealed that its zero knowledge-EVM public testnet for Hermez, which Polygon acquired last year for $250 million, went live. The company continues targeting the mainnet going live sometime in early 2023, calling it “the next step for Ethereum.” DeFi protocols Aave and Uniswap will also be launching on its testnet.