Cryptocurrency researcher Andy believes that in the future, alternative chains will have a greater advantage over Ethereum due to their modular design, user-friendly programming languages, and virtual machine architecture. This article, compiled and translated by Chain News, highlights the potential benefits of alternative chains and their ability to drive mass adoption and true innovation. According to Andy, the development of modular virtual machine (VM) theories has diverged from Ethereum and its EVM, indicating that alternative chains have a significant advantage in the field of modularity. The appeal of allowing developers from various backgrounds to use any programming language in a secure and stable environment to create highly efficient killer DApps is evident. Alternative chains excel in overcoming the challenges of achieving this goal, including the use of any programming language, a secure and stable environment, and high performance. Currently, most blockchain networks for user interaction are single-chained, with execution, consensus, settlement, and data availability occurring within the same framework. In contrast, modular blockchains separate various functions according to project requirements and delegate their operation to different networks. The development of data availability layers is thriving, with Celestia, Hyperlane, Avail from the Polygon ecosystem, and NEAR DA from the Near ecosystem all introducing similar designs this year. The data availability layer allows modular blockchains to be more practical, as rollups can store complete transaction information in the DA layer rather than Ethereum, resulting in extremely low transaction costs and significantly improved user experiences. Solidity, the programming language for writing EVM smart contracts, is not the ideal choice for developers. Many developers have never heard of Solidity and prefer more popular and robust languages such as JavaScript or Python. To recruit a large number of new developers and achieve mass adoption and the emergence of innovative applications, alternative programming languages should not be limited to Solidity. Popular languages like Rust, Go, Move, JavaScript, Python, and Linux have a large number of developers and strong communities. Ethereum’s reliance on Solidity for writing smart contracts and applications is a major obstacle to its long-term growth. In contrast, alternative chains like Solana and NEAR allow applications to be written in Rust. In addition to Solidity, the EVM itself is problematic. Compared to other virtual machine frameworks, the EVM has performance limitations and its security is yet to be fully verified. Traditional virtual machines like JVM and WASM offer greater flexibility and security. Although the EVM has provided developers with many tools, there are still many shortcomings and issues. Building on a solid foundation is more likely to foster truly innovative applications. AltVM, the virtual machine used by alternative chains, offers development kits that have been tested in practice and often come with a large number of libraries and frameworks. For example, Aptos uses MoveVM, a virtual machine created based on Facebook’s plan to launch tokens, which has a relatively mature library and integrates with M1, allowing access to various virtual machine networks and native DApps. AltVM, with its ease of use and modular design, is expected to experience significant growth in the future. To rapidly develop the Web3 industry, relying solely on Ethereum is not feasible. Due to Ethereum’s technical debt, including its single-chained architecture, lack of a strong programming language community, and bloated EVM architecture, alternative chains have a better chance of overcoming these issues and attracting a large number of developers to generate innovative applications. Ethereum may not be able to easily address these problems, and technical debt is a challenge faced by all long-term projects, which could ultimately become a fatal flaw for Ethereum. While Ethereum has a strong consensus and is likely to continue to exist in the future, the opportunities for mass adoption and future innovation may lie in other ecosystems.
Missed Opportunity: Ethereum's Technological Debt May Prevent Mass Adoption