Neon: A Gateway from Ethereum to Solana

A Deep Dive into Neon EVM bringing Solana’s Scalability to Ethereum.

4 min readJan 29, 2022

What is an EVM?

The term “EVM” is famous among developers who have been in the industry building smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. EVM known as Ethereum Virtual Machine is a virtual machine or software platform used to create decentralized applications (dApps). Developers and programmers highly value an EVM due to its no downtime and simple usability {a perfect feature for beginners and newbie programmers}.

Neon EVM is a software written in Rust language with the Berkeley Packet Filter virtual machine like Solana. Neon EVM provides processing of transactions with high throughput and low fees on Solana with a Neon Web3 Proxy {an API for clients} interposing between the Neon EVM and the user on Ethereum. Neon EVM in a layman’s language runs an Ethereum transaction on Solana hence merging the Smart contracts/ dApps of Ethereum with the Scalability and liquidity of Solana. Neon EVM enables an investor to access liquidity on Solana using a dApp like Uniswap still with the high throughput and low fees of Solana.

The Superiority of Neon

As a Neon Enthusiast, my talking about the superiority of Neon might rather look like I’m shading other (or certain) projects but No, I’m not.

Neon is the “Liberator and knight in shining armor” the Ethereum ecosystem is in dire need of.

The days where projects battle for supremacy are over; blockchain projects are now focused on interoperability and synergy as the industry gains global attention and adoption. Now let’s analyze this information:

The number of active dApps on Ethereum is fast rising above 300.

The number of active dApp users is fast rising to 6 million.

The number of daily transactions on Ethereum is about 1.1 million.

This means that Ethereum is the most dominant blockchain for trading smart contracts development. View here. On the other hand:

Solana is processing about 2,542 transactions per second with 400 millisecond block times and maximum scalability reaching 50,000 per second.

Solana transaction costs an average of $0.00025.

Solana has about 1,440 validators securing its network.

Having a network like Solana processing this number of transactions at such speed and low fees compared to Ethereum is “Pure magic’’. Neon Labs decided to merge these two blockchains in a fusion that will allow the maximal utility of the two blockchains — Neon EVM.

Neon allows its community of users, developers, investors, and contributors to access the best projects on Ethereum and Solana.

NEON

A Virtual machine from Ethereum accessing scalability and liquidity from Solana with a high throughput of 4,500 transactions per second and low gas fees of .000015 SOL /tx on a censorship-resistant network. Neon’s highly advanced; innovative and pioneering technology will not just be a game-changer for the Defi and NFT ecosystem but a big boost for the increasing institutional adoption of blockchain technology. Neon will bring:

Scalability with high throughput.
Reduced gas fees for users.
Ease of programming for developers using known languages like Solidity or Vyper.
Deploy Ethereum dApps without modifying smart contracts.
Access growing and attractive {untapped} markets on the Solana ecosystem.

As one of the most anticipated protocols currently in development, Neon promises a new wave of evolution in the Ethereum and Solana ecosystem while generally boosting the global adoption of blockchain technology.

Investor List

9th November 2021 saw Neon Labs raise $40 million in a private funding round led by Jump Capital. Other investors in this private round include:

i. Solana Capital.

ii. Rockaway Blockchain Fund.

iii. Three Arrows Capital.

iv. Ethereal Ventures.

v. IDEO CoLab Ventures.

This interest in Neon Labs by big players and venture capital firms has confirmed the increasing curiosity of well-established projects like Uniswap, Sushi, Aave, and several more dApps who intend to deploy on the Neon EVM after its mainnet launch.

Codebase Audit

On 3rd November 2021, Neon Labs announced the completion of their codebase audit by Neodyme. All issues, bugs, errors, and concerns identified by the Neodyme audit team have been resolved hence approving Neon technically primed for maximum utility.

Neodyme is a team of security researchers and experts in various technologies and ecosystems. They work together to ensure technical safety, reliability, and dependability of systems, products, and software. Neodyme expertise includes Apple, Android, embedded, automotive, smart contracts, and blockchain systems.

Calling on Developers & Contributors

Neon is calling on developers and contributors to its advanced ecosystem. Participants will become early adopters of Neon and will be eligible to receive exclusive rewards. Interested persons can apply here.

Final Thoughts

Neon EVM is the much-needed solution for developers and investors/ users trying to scale Ethereum dApps on Solana in a seamless fashion. With complete decentralization and user-friendliness, Neon EVM provides access to Solana infrastructure and liquidity via Ethereum tools while accessing native Solana tokens.

The industry is seriously looking for ways to scale on Ethereum and Neon EVM is a solution that will allow applications like Uniswap, Sushiswap, Compound, Aave, MakerDAO, and the likes to run on Solana without any changes to their codebase or difficulty. Neon EVM will bring a fusion; the smart contracts and dApps on Ethereum and low gas fees, high throughput, and new markets of Solana.