The virtual machine (VM) is the 'computing engine' of blockchain systems, essentially serving as the runtime environment for smart contracts. It determines what smart contracts can write, how they execute, whether they can execute safely, and even affects the overall chain's performance, scalability, and ecosystem design. As blockchain enters a new era of infrastructure competition, the VM is no longer just a simple code executor, but is evolving into a highly abstract trust computing architecture.
1. Evolution from General Computing to Resource-Driven
Traditional blockchain VM designs focus on generality; for instance, EVM attempts to mimic Turing-complete general programming languages to support arbitrary logic execution. However, this approach leads to resource abuse, performance bottlenecks, and unclear security boundaries. The evolution logic of future VMs will shift from 'being able to run any code' to 'clearly defined resource limits and behavior scope.'
The Move VM used by Aptos and Sui adopts a 'resource-oriented model', where assets in smart contracts are first-class citizens with strict lifecycle management and transfer rules. This approach greatly enhances execution determinacy, security, and analyzability, providing a more solid foundation for high-risk scenarios like DeFi and asset custody.
2. Native Support for Parallel Computing and State Sharding
The vast majority of VMs currently still primarily execute in single-threaded sequential mode. With the surge in on-chain users and interactions, traditional execution models face throughput bottlenecks. Future VMs will need to inherently support parallel execution, especially automatically identifying parallel paths for state-independent contract calls, realizing a 'multi-contract multi-thread' operating logic.
Additionally, the VM will no longer be solely responsible for 'execution' but will deeply integrate with the chain's state sharding mechanism. In some designs, the VM will have 'local state awareness' capabilities, processing only the subset of states belonging to its shard, thus achieving a qualitative change in scalability. This also means that future VMs must support cross-shard contract calls, cross-chain communication, and other more complex coordination logic.
3. Native Support for Verifiable Computing and Zero-Knowledge Proofs
As blockchain evolves from a 'trusted ledger' to a 'verifiable computing platform', virtual machines must also have the capability to generate and verify zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP). For example, ZKVM (Zero-Knowledge VM) allows smart contracts to execute off-chain, proving correctness mathematically on-chain. This not only enhances privacy and scalability but also moves complex logic off-chain.
ZKVM has already been implemented in projects like Starknet and zkSync. In the future, mainstream public chain VMs will gradually become 'ZK-native' and coexist with traditional VMs, supporting multiple execution paths through modular design, balancing performance and privacy.
4. Innovation in Development Experience and Language Models
Virtual machines do not exist in isolation; their language toolchain and development experience determine whether the ecosystem can thrive. Future VMs will abandon overly low-level, error-prone instruction sets and shift towards new language architectures centered around type safety, modularity, and verifiability. Languages like Rust-style Move or customized languages generated through DSL for verification rules will become mainstream.
Moreover, with the development of AI-generated code technology, virtual machines need to incorporate 'contract metadata' to support advanced tools such as contract behavior simulation, automated auditing, and formal verification. This will significantly lower the barriers to contract development and improve code quality and user trust.
The virtual machine is no longer just an executor, but a institutional platform for trust logic.
The future blockchain virtual machine will take on a task that is not simply 'making code run', but rather 'ensuring that code runs correctly within trust boundaries'. It will be a 'framework of institutions' composed of resource models, state isolation, parallel logic, security policies, and verifiable execution.
Building such a virtual machine is not just a technical issue; it is a key step for blockchain to enter the era of trusted computing. It concerns the upper limit of a chain and determines whether the Web3 ecosystem can truly become mainstream in the future.
