EVM Compatibility

[nud3l]

Abstract

Enable full EVM compatibility to allow anyone to use existing EVM tooling (wallets, custodians, block explorers, ...) with the Interlay chain.

Motivation

This proposal is closely inspired by Centrifuge's EVM compatibility proposal.

The objective is to make the Interlay and Kintsugi chain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The proposal ensures that wallets, custodians, block explorers, and other EVM-compatible infrastructure can interact with the Interlay and Kintsugi chain.

EVM compatibility provides several advantages for Interlay, including:

• Access to existing infrastructure: The Ethereum ecosystem has a robust set of infrastructure providers, such as wallets, explorers, and block explorers. By being EVM-compatible, Interlay can leverage this existing infrastructure, making it easier for users to interact with the protocol and reducing the friction of adoption.
• Greater security and reliability: The EVM is a mature and battle-tested virtual machine, and many security audits have been conducted on Ethereum smart contracts. By building a protocol that is EVM-compatible, developers can leverage this existing security infrastructure, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities and exploits.
• Access to a large developer community: The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the most popular platform for developing decentralized applications, and many developers are already familiar with its programming languages, such as Solidity. By being EVM compatible, Interlay can tap into this large developer community, making it easier for developers to build custom dapps on top of the protocol.
• With Connectors, Interlay will support interoperability with other DeFi protocols. Many protocols (i.e. Aave and Maker) are built on the Ethereum blockchain and are EVM compatible. This means that a protocol that is also EVM-compatible can easily integrate with these other protocols, enabling users to move their assets and liquidity between different DeFi applications seamlessly.

Specification

• Add the evm pallet to allow EVM code to be executed in the Interlay runtime: https://github.com/paritytech/frontier/tree/master/frame/evm
• Add the ethereum pallet to handle and produce Ethereum-compatible blocks: https://github.com/paritytech/frontier/tree/polkadot-v0.9.37/frame/ethereum
• Add the standard Ethereum RPC methods on the node using frontier: https://github.com/paritytech/frontier
• Allow the deployment of smart contracts on testnets by anyone
• Allow the deployment of smart contracts on mainnets only by governance approval
• Add the evm-precompile-dispatch precompile to enable interoperability between EVM contracts and the substrate runtime
• Add support for EVM wallets on the Interlay app
• Add support for submitting Ethereum transactions as if they were substrate transactions in the sdk and ui

Security Considerations

The frontier pallets subjected the parachains using the pallet to severe security vulnerabilities in the past, see, e.g., https://medium.com/immunefi/moonbeam-astar-and-acala-library-truncation-bugfix-review-1m-payout-41a862877a5b and https://medium.com/immunefi/moonbeam-missing-call-check-bugfix-review-6279d609bdc5.

Frontier development updates should be followed very closely. Potentially, Interlay should also become part of the Astar, Moonbeam, Parity, and Acala group of projects contributing to the bug bounty program for frontier.