How to Structure Innovation Using Non-EVM

Innovation on non-EVM chains begins by embracing their native execution environments. Instead of forcing EVM patterns, design around the chain's strengths: Solana's parallel execution via the Sealevel runtime, Cosmos' application-specific blockchains with the CometBFT consensus, or Starknet's validity proofs with the Cairo VM. This means architecting your application's state model, transaction flow, and fee logic to align with the underlying layer's capabilities, such as using Solana's account model for composable programs or Cosmos IBC for native interchain logic.

Smart contract architecture diverges significantly. On Solana, you structure programs as stateless instructions that reference external account data, enabling massive parallelism. A DeFi protocol might separate liquidity pools, oracle data, and user positions into distinct accounts processed simultaneously. In the Cosmos ecosystem, you build a sovereign blockchain using the Cosmos SDK, giving you full control over the transaction lifecycle, governance, and fee market. For Starknet, you write provable logic in Cairo, structuring your app to batch computations off-chain and submit validity proofs for settlement.

Key infrastructure components must be re-evaluated. Oracles, indexers, and wallets need native integration. For example, a Solana program uses the Pyth network's on-chain pull oracle model via a specific program account, while a Cosmos chain might integrate an oracle module directly into its consensus. Development toolchains are also chain-specific: using anchor for Solana, ignite for Cosmos, or protostar for Starknet. Your deployment pipeline and testing strategy must account for these tools and the chain's finality characteristics.

Interoperability is a primary architectural consideration. While EVM chains often rely on bridging contracts, non-EVM chains offer native pathways. Structure your application to use Cosmos IBC for trust-minimized cross-chain messaging, Solana's Wormhole for asset bridging, or Starknet's L1<>L2 messaging for Ethereum settlement. Design your contract state and message handlers to be agnostic to the origin chain, using standards like ICS-20 for tokens or custom packet protocols for data.

Finally, economic and security models require fresh design. Fee markets differ: Solana uses priority fees, Cosmos chains have configurable fee tokens and minimum gas prices, and Starknet uses L1 ETH for settlement. Security audits must focus on chain-specific vulnerabilities: Solana's reentrancy via CPI, Cosmos SDK module permissions, or Cairo's hint system. By structuring your project from first principles around these non-EVM paradigms, you can build applications that are more scalable, cost-effective, and functionally unique.

The first prerequisite is to abandon the notion of a universal standard. While the EVM ecosystem revolves around Solidity, ERC standards, and a common RPC interface, non-EVM chains are built on diverse technological foundations. You may be working with Rust-based smart contracts on Solana or CosmWasm, Clarity on Stacks, Move on Aptos or Sui, or a purpose-built virtual machine like the FuelVM. Your development environment, testing frameworks, and deployment toolchains will be chain-specific. Start by thoroughly reviewing the official documentation for your target chain, such as the Solana Cookbook or the Cosmos SDK Tutorials.

A critical mindset shift involves rethinking state and computation models. The EVM's global state and gas-metered execution are not universal. On Solana, programs are stateless; data is stored in separate, rent-paying accounts, demanding a design focused on account structures and cross-program invocations. In the Cosmos ecosystem with the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, native cross-chain composability is a first-class feature, unlike the bridge-dependent model in Ethereum. Performance characteristics also differ drastically; where an EVM L2 might optimize for rollup proofs, a chain like Monad is architecting a parallelized EVM, and a chain like Sei focuses on parallelized order matching for trading.

Finally, embrace the tooling and community of your chosen chain. You will need to master new command-line tools (e.g., solana, aptos, fuel), often JavaScript/TypeScript SDKs for client interaction, and potentially lower-level languages for maximum performance. Security audits follow different patterns; for example, Move's resource-oriented model prevents double-spending at the language level, altering the vulnerability landscape. Successful innovation on non-EVM chains comes from leveraging their unique architectures—like Solana's low-latency blocks or Cosmos app-chains' sovereignty—rather than porting over EVM designs directly.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the dominant standard for smart contract execution, defining a global, deterministic state machine. Its architecture is characterized by a stack-based design, a specific set of opcodes, and the use of 256-bit words. This standardization has created a massive, interoperable ecosystem where contracts and developer tools (like Solidity, Hardhat, and Foundry) are largely portable across dozens of EVM-compatible chains like Polygon, Arbitrum, and Avalanche C-Chain. The primary benefit is network effects: a vast pool of developers, audited code, and established infrastructure.

In contrast, Non-EVM chains implement fundamentally different virtual machines or execution environments. Prominent examples include Solana's Sealevel runtime, which enables parallel transaction processing, and Cosmos SDK chains that compile to WebAssembly (Wasm). These environments often prioritize specific performance characteristics. For instance, Solana's design focuses on high throughput and low fees by leveraging parallel execution and a proof-of-history consensus, while Wasm-based chains benefit from the performance and tooling of a widely-used, multi-language virtual machine standard.

Structuring innovation on a Non-EVM chain requires embracing its unique constraints and advantages. Development shifts from Solidity to languages like Rust (Solana, NEAR, Polkadot), Move (Aptos, Sui), or Go (Cosmos). You must learn new toolchains (Anchor for Solana, Aptos CLI) and conceptual models. For example, Solana's account model explicitly separates data from program logic, and its emphasis on stateless validation requires a different approach to contract design compared to the EVM's stateful contract storage.

The choice between paradigms involves clear trade-offs. The EVM offers ecosystem maturity and lower switching costs between chains, but can be constrained by its sequential execution and gas model. Non-EVM chains can offer superior performance, novel features (like parallel execution or formal verification in Move), and more granular control, at the cost of a steeper learning curve and a less saturated tooling landscape. The decision hinges on whether your application's requirements align more with ecosystem liquidity or architectural specialization.

When building on a Non-EVM chain, start by deeply understanding its core abstraction: the account model, fee mechanism, and consensus. For a Cosmos chain using CosmWasm, you would write logic in Rust, compile to Wasm, and interact via IBC for cross-chain communication. On Solana, you structure your program to validate transactions that reference specific accounts, maximizing parallelism. The key is to design for the environment's strengths rather than porting EVM patterns directly, which often leads to suboptimal or insecure implementations.

Ultimately, the evolution of multi-chain and multi-VM interoperability protocols like LayerZero and Axelar is making the paradigm choice less binary. Developers can build core logic on the chain best suited for it while using generalized messaging to connect to the broader EVM liquidity pool. This allows teams to leverage Non-EVM innovation for performance-critical components while still participating in the established DeFi ecosystems, blending the advantages of both architectural worlds.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) has become a dominant standard, but innovation often requires exploring different computational models. Non-EVM chains provide alternative architectures with distinct trade-offs in scalability, consensus, and state management. Key platforms include Solana with its parallel execution via Sealevel, Cosmos with its application-specific blockchains through the Cosmos SDK, and emerging Bitcoin Layer 2s like Stacks and the Lightning Network that extend Bitcoin's functionality. Understanding these foundational differences is the first step in structuring a project that can leverage unique advantages unavailable on EVM-based systems.

Designing for a non-EVM chain starts with aligning your application's needs with the chain's native strengths. For high-throughput applications like order-book DEXs or real-time games, Solana's architecture allows transactions to process in parallel, significantly increasing potential throughput. For projects requiring sovereign governance or custom economic models, building an application-specific blockchain with the Cosmos SDK or Polkadot's Substrate framework provides maximum flexibility. If your innovation centers around Bitcoin's security or its native asset, architectures like client-side validation (used by Stacks) or payment channels (Lightning) enable new classes of decentralized finance and smart contracts on Bitcoin.

Development tooling and languages differ significantly. Instead of Solidity, you'll use Rust for Solana programs and CosmWasm smart contracts on Cosmos, or Clarity for predictable smart contracts on Stacks. The programming model also shifts; on Solana, you explicitly manage account states and pass them to programs, a lower-level but more performant approach than the EVM's contract storage. Frameworks like Anchor for Solana abstract some complexity. On Cosmos, you define your blockchain's state machine and message types using Go or Rust, giving you control over the chain's logic from the ground up.

Interoperability is a critical consideration. While your core logic may reside on a non-EVM chain, you'll likely need to connect to other ecosystems. This is achieved through cross-chain communication protocols. Cosmos zones connect via the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol. Solana uses wormhole or deBridge for asset bridging. Bitcoin L2s often require bridges to move BTC onto their chain. When structuring your application, plan for these cross-chain interactions early, as they impact security assumptions and user experience. Consider using message verification rather than simple asset locking where possible for greater composability.

To implement, start by setting up the chain's local development environment. For Solana, install the Solana CLI and use solana-test-validator. For a Cosmos chain, use the ignite CLI to scaffold your blockchain. Write your core business logic in the chain's native language, focusing on its unique execution model. Thoroughly test using the chain's native testing frameworks before deploying to a devnet. Finally, audit your code, especially novel cryptographic constructs or cross-chain logic, as non-EVM ecosystems may have less battle-tested tooling than Ethereum. By embracing these architectural differences, developers can build applications that are more scalable, efficient, or secure for their specific use case.

Building on non-EVM chains like Solana, Cosmos, or Starknet requires a fundamental shift from the Ethereum-centric development model. Success hinges on embracing each ecosystem's unique architecture—whether it's Solana's single-threaded runtime for speed, Cosmos' sovereign app-chains via the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, or Starknet's Cairo VM for scalable ZK-proof computation. Your choice should be dictated by your application's core requirements: transaction throughput, finality speed, sovereignty, or computational complexity. Treating these platforms as mere "EVM alternatives" misses their potential for novel design patterns.

To structure innovation effectively, start by deeply auditing the target chain's tooling and community. For a Solana program, this means mastering the solana and anchor frameworks, understanding PDAs (Program Derived Addresses), and leveraging native parallel execution. On Cosmos, you'll work with the Cosmos SDK, define your own Msg types, and design your chain's governance. On a ZK-rollup like Starknet, you'll write contracts in Cairo, manage storage proofs, and integrate with L1 settlement. Each stack has its own testing frameworks, localnet solutions, and deployment pipelines that must be mastered before production.

Your development lifecycle must adapt. Continuous integration needs to run tests against chain-specific clients (solana-test-validator, ignite chain serve, katana). Gas optimization takes different forms: minimizing compute units on Solana, optimizing IBC packet flow on Cosmos, or reducing Cairo step counts on Starknet. Security audits require reviewers fluent in the chain's native language and common pitfalls, such as Solana's reentrancy via CPI (Cross-Program Invocation) or Cosmos SDK module dependencies.

Looking forward, the multi-chain landscape will be defined by interoperability that respects architectural diversity. The future isn't a single virtual machine but a network of specialized chains communicating via protocols like IBC, LayerZero, or Wormhole. Your next step is to prototype. Choose a minimal viable feature, implement it natively on your selected non-EVM chain using its canonical tools, and integrate it with the broader ecosystem through a trusted bridge or messaging layer. Document the challenges and performance characteristics you encounter.

Finally, engage with the chain's core community. Governance proposals on Cosmos, Solana Foundation grants, and Starknet developer forums are avenues to contribute and steer the platform's evolution. By building natively and sharing your learnings, you move beyond porting existing ideas and begin to unlock the unique innovations that non-EVM architectures were designed to enable.