What Is EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine)?
Also known as: Ethereum Virtual Machine, EVM-compatible
In short
The EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is the stack-based, deterministic computing environment that lets every node on the Ethereum network run smart contract code identically and reach the same result; many other blockchains also adopt EVM compatibility.
Developers usually write smart contracts in high-level languages such as Solidity or Vyper; this code is compiled into bytecode that the EVM understands and deployed to the blockchain. The EVM is a stack machine that works with 256-bit words and executes steps such as addition, writing to storage, or calling another contract through opcodes. Each opcode has a gas cost; when a transaction runs out of gas, execution stops and the changes made are reverted. This mechanism prevents infinite loops from locking up the network.
The EVM defines the rules that update Ethereum's state, that is, account balances and contract data, according to the transactions in each block. Because networks such as BNB Chain, Avalanche C-Chain, Polygon PoS, Arbitrum, and Optimism are EVM-compatible, the same Solidity code, wallets, and developer tools can be used on these networks with minor changes. zkEVMs aim to make EVM execution verifiable with zero-knowledge proofs.
Among the EVM's limits are its restricted capacity due to sequential execution of transactions and the high gas cost of storage operations. Parallel execution and alternative virtual machines are approaches being researched to overcome these limits.
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