Detailed explanation of Sei V2’s parallel EVM logic and narrative

2023-12-21 14:49

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After deployment is completed, more Web2 interactive experiences will be provided

Source: Sei v2 - The First Parallelized EVM Blockchain

Author: Sei

Translation: Sharon, BlockBeats

Editor's Note:

On November 29th, Sei released its V2 strategic plan on social media, intending to create the first parallel EVM. It is reported that compared with existing EVM blockchains, parallel EVM can enable applications to support more users, create more Web2-like interactive experiences, and enhance the performance of Ethereum and L2 applications. This upgrade will be released on the public testnet in the first quarter of 2024 and will be deployed on the mainnet in the first half of 2024. Sei also provided a detailed explanation of what parallelized EVM technology is and how Sei will deploy it. BlockBeats has translated the original article as follows:

In this article, Sei Labs introduces and proposes an upgrade to Sei v2 - the first parallel EVM. More details can be found on the Sei developer forum for additional technical information and discussion.

Sei v2 leverages the mature advantages of Sei and makes it available to EVM developers worldwide. This enables Sei to fully utilize Solana and Ethereum - a super-optimized execution layer, benefiting from tools and ideas shared around EVM.

Non-technical Summary

Sei has been running on the mainnet test version since August 2023. During this time, Sei has been pushing for features that were previously thought to be achievable through a globally distributed node set:

1. Sei consistently finalizes blocks at a speed of 390 milliseconds, making it the fastest chain currently available.

2. Sei's activity has been consistently over 45 TPS, making it the second highest chain in terms of successful transactions per second currently in operation.

All of this was accomplished without interruption or unexpected network downtime, which reinforces the fundamental technical point that integrating blockchain provides better performance than using modular chains.

Sei currently allows the use of Cosmwasm smart contracts written in Rust. As Sei continues to attract more developers, the biggest request from developers is for Sei's supported execution environment to have greater flexibility. Specifically, EVM support is the most concerning issue for many developers.

Therefore, we propose Sei v2 - the first major upgrade of Sei, becoming the first fully parallelized EVM. This upgrade will enable Sei to have the following features:

1. Backward compatibility of EVM smart contracts - Allows developers to deploy audited smart contracts on EVM-compatible blockchains without changing the code;

2、Familiarity and extensive use of reusable applications and tools (such as Metamask);

3、Optimistic Parallelism - Allows chains to support parallelism without developers defining any dependencies;

4、SeiDB - Improvements to the storage layer to prevent state bloat, improve state read/write performance, and make it easier for new nodes to synchronize state;

5、Interoperability with existing chains, allowing seamless integration between EVM and any other execution environment supported by Sei.

From a performance perspective, Sei v2 will provide a throughput of 28,300 batch transactions per second, with a block time of 390 milliseconds and finality of 390 milliseconds. This allows Sei to support more users, provide a better user experience, and offer lower transaction costs than existing blockchains.

Sei's main upgrade progress is nearing code completion. After review, this upgrade will be released on the public testnet in the first quarter of 2024 and deployed to the mainnet in the first half of 2024.

How to run?

Sei is composed of different software components that work together to support blockchain. Some of these components are related to the consensus layer, while others are related to the execution layer.

Sei v2 will change the way the execution layer works to support Optimistic parallelism and optimized state storage. In addition, it will create a new component to support EVM smart contracts. These EVM smart contracts will benefit from all the changes made to consensus and parallelism, and will also be able to interact with existing Cosmwasm smart contracts.

Proposed Change Summary

Backward Compatibility

The construction of Sei v2 takes into account backward compatibility, instead of requiring developers to completely rewrite their smart contracts to deploy on Sei. This means that every major contract existing on Ethereum can be seamlessly redeployed on Sei without any code changes.

From a technical perspective, as part of the Sei binary file, the Sei node will automatically be imported into Geth, the Go implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine. Geth will be used to handle Ethereum transactions, and any updates resulting from this (state updates or calls to non-EVM related contracts) will be processed through the special interface created by Sei for the EVM.

Geth implementation as part of Core Sei binary file

This method allows for full bytecode compatibility, allowing Sei to easily handle anything that can run with Geth. Additionally, since Sei's RPC interface is the same as EVM, existing Ethereum tools can be seamlessly reused. For example, users can simply switch the connected RPC to use Metamask, and developers can use tools such as Foundry, Remix, and Hardhat.

Optimistic Parallelism

Sei currently requires smart contract developers to selectively define the state that the smart contract is using. Unfortunately, this optional approach will bring greater friction to developers.

Sei v2 will eliminate the need for developers to define their own state access. Instead, Sei will optimistically run all transactions in parallel. Whenever there is a conflict (transactions touching the same state), Sei will track the storage portions touched by each transaction. Transactions involving different portions of storage will be rerun in parallel, while transactions involving the same state will be rerun in sequence. This will recursively continue until there are no more unexplained conflicts. Since transactions are ordered within blocks, this is a deterministic process that will simplify developer workflows while maintaining chain-level parallelism.