MegaETH: A Real-Time Blockchain for Web 2.0–Scale DApps
The scalability trilemma has long been a formidable challenge for the blockchain industry. Most established chains maintain decentralization and security, but struggle with limited scalability while high-performance Layer 1 (L1) blockchains often compromise decentralization to achieve high throughput.
What if we could push throughput to unprecedented levels without compromising security or decentralization?
Enter MegaETH — a project backed by industry leaders such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin and Dragonfly Capital. With the first real-time Ethereum virtual machine (EVM)–compatible chain —i.e., one that can process transactions as soon as they arrive, and then publish the resulting state changes — MegaETH aims to redefine blockchain performance. In this article, we delve into the scaling limitations of current blockchains and examine how MegaETH aims to solve them. Let's dive in!
Key Takeaways:
MegaETH aims to provide an effective solution to the blockchain trilemma, one that doesn't compromise on speed, scalability, security or decentralization.
MegaETH is the first real-time chain that aims to host Web 2.0–scale apps and bridge the gap between blockchain networks and traditional cloud computing servers.
The project is backed by the likes of Dragonfly Capital, Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Lubin, and its key features include a heterogeneous blockchain architecture and a hyper-optimized EVM execution environment.
The Scaling Limitations of Blockchains
The blockchain trilemma has posed a significant challenge for web3 developers for years. As Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin explains, distributed ledger networks can only achieve two out of three critical qualities (security, decentralization and scalability) by using simple techniques.
As a result, most high-performance chains, such as Solana, Avalanche and BNB Chain, often compromise on decentralization or security to achieve scalability.
To address the scalability challenges of L1 networks, developers have introduced Layer 2 (L2) solutions, which operate on top of blockchains such as Ethereum. These L2 chains achieve high transaction throughput (TPS) while leveraging the security and decentralization of their underlying L1s. However, according to MegaETH, both high-performance L1 and L2 networks fall short of meeting the demands of Web 2.0–scale applications, particularly in terms of latency, responsiveness and cost efficiency.
Source: MegaETH
As shown in the table above, the blockchain with the highest scalability, opBNB, achieves a gas rate of 100 MGas/s, equivalent to 650 Uniswap swaps or 3,700 ERC-20 transfers per second. In comparison, modern databases can process over 1 million TPC-C TPS. While Arbitrum One, the fastest chain listed, offers a block time of 0.25 seconds, this remains insufficient for applications requiring rapid feedback or high update rates.
These limitations in both scalability and speed make current high-performance L1s and L2s ill-suited for Web 2.0 applications with significant computational demands.
What Is MegaETH?
MegaETH is an EVM-compatible blockchain with real-time Web 2.0–level performance. With the goal of bridging the gap between distributed ledger networks and traditional cloud computing servers, the project aims to push the performance of Ethereum-based L2s to hardware limits. As the first real-time blockchain, MegaETH can stream transactions at 100,000 TPS with transaction fees under $0.01, and provide millisecond-level responsiveness without sacrificing security or decentralization.
Founders of MegaETH
MegaLabs, the organization behind MegaETH, was founded in early 2023 by Shuyao Kong and Yilong Li. Holding an MBA from Harvard Business School, Kong has a background in business development within the blockchain industry. Prior to co-founding MegaLabs, she was the global head of business development at ConsenSys, where she continues to serve as an advisor.
As the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MegaLabs, Li has a PhD in computer science from Stanford University. An experienced software developer, he previously worked at Runtime Verification Inc., a firm specializing in software analysis tools and the application of formal methods to improve computing systems.
Together, Kong and Li founded MegaLabs in early 2023 to leverage their business development and computer science expertise to build MegaETH as the first real-time blockchain.
MegaETH Investors
MegaETH raised a total of $20 million of funding in a single seed round at a 9-figure valuation. The round was led by Dragonfly Capital, with other notable venture capitalists including Figment Capital, Folius Ventures, Robot Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Tangent Ventures and Credibly Neutral. In addition to VCs, MegaETH is backed by high-profile angel investors, such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin and EigenLayer creator Sreeram Kannan.
MegaETH raised a further $10 million on crypto trader Cobie’s decentralized fundraising platform, Echo. The round was fully funded within minutes and oversubscribed, showing significant investor demand.
Key Features of MegaETH
MegaETH achieves over 100,000 TPS with less than 1 ms latency and block time, as well as transaction fees under $0.01, via two core features: a heterogenous blockchain architecture and a hyper-optimized EVM execution environment.
Heterogenous Blockchain Architecture
MegaETH's heterogeneous blockchain architecture enables network nodes with different hardware configurations to specialize in specific tasks to boost performance.
There are three types of nodes: sequencers, full nodes and provers. With cutting-edge hardware, a small set of sequencers conduct performance-critical tasks such as transaction execution. Simultaneously, a massively decentralized network of full nodes performs security-critical duties such as block validation. Provers have the lowest hardware requirements, and focus on providing L2 proofs to full nodes.
Hyper-Optimized EVM Execution Environment
MegaETH provides a hyper-optimized EVM execution environment to push latency, throughput and resource efficiency to hardware limits. Consequently, the real-time blockchain can process large volumes of transactions as soon as they arrive, and publish the resulting state changes in a few milliseconds.
To enable real-time EVM execution, MegaETH co-designed a low-latency, streaming-based block-building algorithm with a concurrency control protocol supporting transaction prioritization.
How Does MegaETH Work?
MegaETH's real-time blockchain scales without sacrificing decentralization and security through the following key components and features.
Node Specialization: MegaETH enhances network performance and minimizes hardware requirements by concentrating transaction execution in a few sequencer nodes, while decentralizing block validation across many full nodes.
Real-Time EVM: Its blockchain’s real-time EVM execution engine processes transactions as they arrive, and publishes state changes in as little as 10 milliseconds. It leverages a low-latency, streaming-based block-building algorithm using a concurrency control protocol with transaction prioritization support.
In-Memory Computation: Compared to SSD-based systems, MegaETH accelerates state access by 1,000 times using in-memory computing, storing the EVM world state and state trie in memory, and providing the capabilities to host high-performance, data-intensive Web 2.0 applications.
Smart Contract Compilation: MegaETH boosts performance by up to 100 times by compiling smart contracts into native machine code on the fly via just-in-time (JIT) compilation. Offering an ideal platform for compute-intensive decentralized applications (DApps), the real-time blockchain uses a technique that eliminates the inefficiencies related to the interpretation of EVM bytecodes and stack machine emulation.
Super I/O-Efficient State Trie: MegaETH replaces the Merkle Patricia Trie (MPT) with a new design, eliminating disk I/O bottlenecks while scaling efficiently to terabytes of state data and maintaining EVM compatibility.
State Sync Protocol: With a highly-efficient peer-to-peer (P2P) protocol for low-latency and high-throughput state update propagation, MegaETH enables even those nodes with modest internet connections to remain synchronized with the latest state at an update rate of up to 100,000 TPS.
What Is MegaMafia?
MegaMafia is an extension of the MegaETH core team. It consists of a group of 10x builders hand-picked by MegaETH developers. According to the project, MegaMafia participants have "an internal compass guiding them toward crypto's world domination."
MegaETH defines three common qualities for MegaMafia members:
They’re building DApps that are only possible on MegaETH.
They all work on "zero to one" use cases, such as autonomous world engines, next-gen decentralized finance (DeFi) primitives and consumer projects with emotional value creation for end users.
They all collaborate and help other Mafia members with tasks ranging from product design to go-to-market strategies.
MegaETH Road Map and Outlook
MegaETH is setting a new standard for blockchain scalability, addressing long-standing limitations without compromising decentralization or security. By combining innovative architectural decisions with technologies like real-time EVM execution, in-memory computing and smart contract JIT compilation, this real-time L1 chain delivers unmatched performance tailored for Web 2.0–scale applications.
Supported by high-profile investors, such as Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Lubin, MegaETH is poised to bridge the gap between blockchain and traditional computing, unlocking new possibilities for decentralized applications. The project is on track to launch its testnet in early 2025, with the mainnet rollout soon thereafter.
#LearnWithBybit