The Development of Parallel EVM Technology: A Comparison of Monad, MegaETH, and Pharos

Recently, three important parallel EVM projects have successively launched their test networks. Monad launched its test network on February 19, MegaETH on March 21, and Pharos on March 24. The concentrated appearance of these projects has made parallel EVM technology a hot topic again in the Web3 field.

The EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), as the core component of Ethereum, is responsible for executing smart contracts and processing transactions. However, the traditional sequential execution model of EVM can easily lead to network congestion and delays under high load conditions. Parallel EVM technology significantly improves network throughput by allowing multiple operations to execute simultaneously, enhancing the performance and scalability of the blockchain.

Monad

Monad is a high-performance EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain developed by Monad Labs. The project aims to improve system scalability while maintaining decentralization, addressing the low throughput issues of existing EVM-compatible blockchains.

The main advantage of Monad lies in its ability to process 10,000 transactions per second, with a block time of 1 second. This is primarily attributed to the following four aspects of optimization:

1. MonadBFT: A high-performance consensus mechanism based on the improved HotStuff.
2. Asynchronous execution: By separating consensus from execution, the execution throughput is significantly improved.
3. Parallel Execution: Adopting an optimistic execution approach to improve network efficiency and throughput.
4. MonadDB: A custom high-performance KV database for storing verified blockchain data.

MegaETH

MegaETH is a Layer2 solution focused on real-time blockchain performance, providing ultra-low latency and high scalability for applications that require instant responsiveness.

MegaETH has a TPS of 100k and a block time of about 10ms, achieving millisecond response times even under high load. Its main technical features include:

1. Node specialization: Different role nodes perform different functions, including orderers, validators, and full nodes.
2. Directional Optimization: Targeted optimizations for various issues faced by traditional EVM blockchains.
3. Mini Blocks: Pre-confirmation occurs every 10 milliseconds, greatly reducing the interval for transaction propagation to the rest of the network.

Pharos

Pharos is positioned as a high-performance EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain, dedicated to creating the best RWA and Payment ecosystem. The project boasts an ultra-high performance of processing 50,000 transactions per second and consuming 2 billion units of gas per second.

Pharos adopts the DP5 full-stack parallel architecture, comprehensively upgrading from consensus, transactions, pipelines, storage to hardware acceleration:

1. Scalable Consensus Protocol
2. Parallel execution of dual virtual machines
3. Full Lifecycle Asynchronous Pipeline
4. High-performance storage with certified data structure (ADS)
5. Modular Special Handling Network (SPN)

Summary

EVM has the most developers and the largest DApp ecosystem in the Web3 world, but Ethereum's scalability issues seriously hinder its further development. Parallel EVM technology has become one of the important directions to solve this problem.

Monad strikes a balance between scalability and decentralization, providing developers with a throughput of 10,000 TPS while maintaining EVM compatibility. MegaETH excels in latency and throughput, making it suitable for applications that require near-instantaneous responses. Pharos boasts a transaction processing capability of up to 50K TPS and 2 gGas/s, targeting institutional clients and the RWA-Fi compliant requirements.

These three projects each have their own characteristics, and developers can weigh their choices between performance, decentralization, and specialization according to their specific needs.