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Author of this article: Yuki, a Moonbeam community user.
From EVM Hub to full-stack: the starting point of Moonbeam's transformation.
Back in 2021 to 2023, EVM compatibility was the standard configuration for all new public chains. Being compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine means quickly gaining a developer ecosystem and shortening cold start times.
Moonbeam was once part of this trend—an EVM parachain in the Polkadot ecosystem, focusing on 'making it easy for Solidity developers to cross-chain'.
However, with the explosion of Layer 2, modular blockchains, and Appchains in the broader Web3 ecosystem, as well as Polkadot Hub's exploration in Ethereum compatibility and PolkaVM, 'EVM compatibility' is no longer a differentiating selling point but rather the minimum threshold. Solana boasts extreme performance, the Rollup Stack (Arbitrum, Optimism) has brought lower costs and rich tools, and Cosmos offers modular freedom... A Moonbeam that is merely 'EVM compatible' will soon be marginalized in the next round of competition.
Moonbeam's breakthrough: building the Super Dapp Layer of Polkadot.
In the face of change, Moonbeam chose not to continue being a 'compatibility layer', but decided to break through—becoming a full-stack Web3 platform (Storage + Liquidity + Governance + EVM compatibility), becoming the 'Super Dapp Layer' of the Polkadot ecosystem.
The roadmap for 2025 is Moonbeam's transformation blueprint.
2025 Roadmap: Moonbeam's full-stack ambition.
To step out of the role of a purely EVM-compatible chain, Moonbeam has devised a 'full-stack' technical roadmap:
First, by introducing decentralized storage (StorageHub) into its own execution layer, it addresses the structural shortcoming of the Polkadot ecosystem's lack of native storage. This means that in the future, not just code and assets, but data can also exist natively on the Moonbeam network, creating a complete closed loop for building Web3 applications.
Secondly, in terms of performance, Moonbeam will shorten block production time to 2 seconds through PoV (Proof of Validity) optimization and Elastic Scaling, increasing network throughput capacity to three times the current level and reducing Gas fees to one-fourth of the beginning of the year. This allows applications such as DeFi, gaming, and AI agents to achieve an experience close to Solana's smoothness while maintaining the security and ecological advantages of EVM compatibility.
At the same time, Moonbeam continues to deepen EVM compatibility, not only fully aligning with the Ethereum Pectra upgrade (including BLS signatures, smart wallets, calldata cost adjustments, etc.), but also promoting the transition of XC-20 (cross-chain ERC-20) assets to EVM-native, which will greatly simplify developers' integration work and eliminate reliance on complex pre-compilations, making Moonbeam the platform with the lowest migration and deployment costs for developers within Polkadot.
In addition, a long-awaited cross-chain bridge for Moonbeam—the native, trustless cross-chain bridge between Moonbeam and Moonriver—will also go live this August, further enhancing liquidity.
Finally, Moonbeam continues to optimize developer experience (DX) and ecological governance:
The XC-20 external asset registration process has been simplified, allowing project parties to register permissionlessly through collateral deposits, significantly shortening development cycles.
On-chain financial proposals introduce a stablecoin payment mechanism, reducing the funding volatility risk for project parties.
Moonbeam Routed Liquidity (MRL) continues to iterate, further enhancing cross-chain asset routing efficiency and supporting more complex DeFi operations.
"Snappy RPC" client optimization reduces transaction confirmation delays and improves user experience.
Completed integration with OpenGov and the Treasury Council, ensuring a smooth connection between technical upgrades, financial expenditures, and community feedback at the governance level, laying the governance foundation for long-term network upgrades and ecological incentives.
Ecological significance: Moonbeam is filling the 'critical gap' in Polkadot.
Many people tend to focus on performance, heterogeneous chain scalability, or governance mechanisms when discussing the future of Polkadot, but overlook the core shortcoming of the ecosystem—lack of a fully integrated Dapp hosting layer.
On Ethereum, Rollups carry most emerging Dapps and innovative financial protocols; on Solana, the high-performance single execution environment combined with powerful DeFi and consumer applications creates strong network effects.
In contrast to Polkadot:
Firstly, performance is certainly not an issue: the introduction of asynchronous packaging and elastic scaling has already given the Polkadot relay chain and parachains excellent throughput capabilities.
Governance and security architecture are leading: OpenGov, Agile Coretime, and shared security have matured and undergone multiple iterations.
But where is the 'home' for Dapps?
Polkadot provides an interconnected network layer (Relay Chain and XCM), but still needs a developer-friendly, functionally integrated platform for applications that is equipped with assets and data.
Polkadot Hub is introducing smart contracts and Ethereum compatibility, but its short-term goal still leans towards becoming a cross-chain and governance coordination center rather than a complete Dapp Layer. More importantly, the short-term objectives of Polkadot Hub are not designed to support storage, liquidity aggregation, or optimal developer experience.
Moonbeam's transformation perfectly fills this gap. Moonbeam offers an execution layer that combines transaction efficiency with developer experience; although TPS does not pursue Solana's extremes, it achieves sufficient performance for applications aimed at DeFi, NFT, and lightweight AI agents through PoV and elastic scaling.
It inherits and deepens EVM compatibility, supports the latest Pectra upgrade and ERC-4337 Passkey (supporting biometric and social recovery smart wallets), lowering the migration and deployment costs for developers, with a developer experience similar to Arbitrum.
More critically, it breaks the traditional 'single functionality' of Polkadot parachains by integrating storage, liquidity, and cross-chain capabilities onto one platform through StorageHub, Moonbeam Routed Liquidity (MRL), and the Moonbeam>Moonriver native bridge.
In other words, Moonbeam is not just a parachain, but has autonomously built composite capabilities similar to Ethereum Layer 2 and Data Availability layers on top of Polkadot's Layer 0, providing developers with the 'full stack' needed to build complex applications instead of relying on the functional assembly of multiple parachains.
Ultimately, Moonbeam becomes the 'Super Dapp Layer' within the Polkadot ecosystem and has the potential to expand into a cross-ecological Storage + Liquidity Hub.
Can Moonbeam produce its own growth curve?
In the short term, Moonbeam is the only 'Storage + Liquidity full-stack Layer' within Polkadot. Looking across the entire Polkadot ecosystem, by 2025, the only parachain with the 'four-in-one' capability of storage + liquidity + cross-chain bridge + developer-friendly tools is Moonbeam.
With the integration of StorageHub, the launch of the native Moonriver cross-chain bridge (Q3 2025), and comprehensive EVM compatibility (in sync with Ethereum Pectra upgrade), Moonbeam is no longer a 'compatibility parachain' but a full-stack entry point for the Polkadot application ecosystem.
The 2025 Treasury stablecoin payments, simplification of XC-20 external asset registration (permissionless mode), and lower thresholds for development and operation significantly enhance Moonbeam's attractiveness to developers.
However, the biggest short-term challenge is: the market adoption of decentralized storage has yet to be validated by real applications. Without killer use cases, it is difficult for technical advantages to translate into TVL or user growth.
Long-term Moonbeam: to become a cross-ecological Storage + Liquidity center.
From a longer-term perspective, Moonbeam is shaping a unique role as a 'Storage + Liquidity Hub' rather than purely an EVM-compatible Hub.
This combination has almost no direct competitors in the current multi-chain world—it is neither a purely DeFi chain nor a purely modular storage chain, but a hub for data and assets aimed at application developers and liquidity providers.
If Moonbeam can radiate its storage and liquidity capabilities to other chains through bridging and liquidity routing (and may also support rollups and more app chains in the future), it will compete with heterogeneous infrastructures in terms of data and asset management. However, Moonbeam does not pursue 'extreme performance' or 'high TPS', but aims to establish differentiated barriers in multi-chain asset management, data storage, and governance flexibility. It must also acknowledge that Moonbeam needs to rely on Polkadot SDK and governance rhythm upgrades, and this reliance on a technical path may require finding alternative innovative speed methods.
Can the technical advantages be translated into adoption?
Moonbeam's technical roadmap is logically clear and differentiated, but a technical stack does not equate to market adoption.
In the coming year, whether Moonbeam can attract real developers to migrate, facilitate cross-chain user flow, and implement a killer use case for storage scenarios will be the core test determining whether it can truly become the 'Super Dapp Layer of Polkadot'.
Let's witness how Moonbeam uses Storage and Liquidity to break the ceiling of Web3 compatibility chains!
