Metis Hyperion: Does it ignite hope for AI narratives in Ethereum?

Author: YBB Capital Researcher Ac-Core

1. Overview of Metis Hyperion

Metis is an Ethereum L2 ecosystem based on Optimistic Rollup, having launched the Andromeda mainnet early on. Compared to other L2 networks, its biggest feature is the decentralized sorter, which assigns transaction sorting rights to community participants. In March 2025, Metis announced its dual-chain strategy: launching the high-performance Hyperion chain on the existing general-purpose Andromeda base. The former is positioned as a secure and reliable general-purpose L2, while the latter focuses on high-frequency, high-throughput, and AI-driven application scenarios. The Hyperion architecture is built on top of the Metis SDK, with the core being a brand new MetisVM virtual machine (compatible with EVM to support AI-optimized instructions), aimed at optimizing scalability and decentralization while greatly improving transaction efficiency.

According to Metis's official introduction, Hyperion is committed to building a 'high-performance, AI-native' L2 network capable of achieving near millisecond-level transaction confirmation and extremely high transaction throughput, making AI-native applications (such as on-chain LLM inference and decentralized AI agents) possible. Overall, Metis, through the dual chain architecture, emphasizes security and decentralization with Andromeda, while Hyperion emphasizes high performance and AI applications, providing complementary support for different application scenarios.

Overall, Metis's development route can be summarized in two points: First, continuously improve the core L2 infrastructure, such as incorporating real-time data availability migration and fraud proof mechanisms in the Andromeda upgrade in May 2025, making it the industry's first 'truly decentralized' Layer 2; second, move towards modularity and multi-chain interoperability, lowering development thresholds through Metis SDK and promoting multi-chain ecological development. The launch of Hyperion has somewhat reshaped the value logic of the METIS token: making Metis no longer just an L2, but transforming into a platform of 'multi-chain infrastructure + AI-specific chains'.

2. On-chain LLM? What is the logic behind Metis's implementation?

Image Source: Metis

2.1 AI ecological closed loop trio: SDK, Hyperion, LazAI

As an Optimistic Rollup, Hyperion inherits the security models of both Metis and Optimism, primarily updating aspects related to parallel computing, data availability, and decentralization. The main optimization focus is on AI and high-frequency application scenarios. Specifically, Metis is promoting ecological construction through the three systems of Metis SDK + Hyperion + LazAI.

Parallel Execution Engine: Traditional blockchains typically execute transactions sequentially, while Hyperion introduces parallel execution technologies like Block-STM, allowing independent transactions within a block to run together. By adopting optimistic concurrency control and dynamic DAG scheduling algorithms, independent transactions within the same block can run simultaneously, significantly increasing throughput.

Decentralized Sorter: The transaction sorting rights of Hyperion are shared by a multi-node network, rather than being controlled by a single node or a few operators. The specific mechanisms include leader rotation and an encrypted mempool combined with proposer-builder separation (PBS) to prevent front-running and centralized interference.

Data Availability: Hyperion plans to fully leverage Ethereum's new features and external DA services to ensure data availability. With the advancement of Ethereum EIP-4844, Hyperion (and Andromeda) will publish transaction data directly through blob transactions to L1, inheriting Ethereum's security and reducing costs. According to official statements, Metis is also preparing to integrate EigenDA.

Fraud Proof Mechanism: Hyperion continues to adopt the optimistic model but has made upgrades to the fraud proof. Metis early on committed to introducing a complete fraud proof mechanism and data availability scheme; its ReGenesis roadmap also proposed 'executions come from the latest fraud proof system of OP Stack'. In other words, Hyperion will adopt an interactive error correction mechanism: after the sorter publishes a new block, 'observers' in the network have a window period to submit challenges (such as a 7-day period) to prove the block invalid. If this challenge is successful, the malicious block will be rolled back, and the responsible party will be penalized.

In terms of AI native infrastructure: The Metis SDK allows users to build their own L2 or L3 blockchains, which already integrate an upgraded version of EVM (called MetisVM) and parallel processing capabilities, as well as a decentralized sorting mechanism. Hyperion is a high-performance AI-specific Layer2 built with this SDK, combining Optimistic Rollup, parallel execution, and distributed sorting, enabling near real-time transaction confirmation and on-chain AI inference. According to official claims, MetisVM improves transaction efficiency by about 30% through dynamic optimization of opcode and parallel execution mechanisms. Meanwhile, MetisDB uses memory-mapped Merkle trees and concurrency control, achieving nanosecond-level state access, effectively eliminating storage bottlenecks. These technologies combined allow Hyperion to run AI inference tasks like large language models (LLM) directly on-chain, laying a strong foundation for AI contracts.

In terms of incubating AI narrative projects: Metis is also actively incubating AI-related projects, such as the LazAI protocol. This is an open network focused on 'verifiable AI data assets', aimed at solving the issues of data opacity and inconsistency in AI usage. LazAI leverages blockchain's verifiable computing and standardized mechanisms to create an open and transparent data market, ensuring that AI models use high-quality data and supporting cross-chain usage. Based on this protocol, Metis has also launched the Alith framework, a development tool specifically designed for AI agents on the blockchain. Developers can quickly write AI Agents on Metis using the Alith SDK and deploy them online. The official also provided a very practical example: users can complete DeFi operations such as lending through natural language commands via a Telegram chatbot, without needing to write smart contracts themselves. This design greatly lowers the barrier for ordinary people to use AI applications and makes developers' work easier.

2.2 Compared to other L2s, what capabilities does Hyperion enhance for Metis?

Hyperion still relies on Optimistic Rollup as its foundation. Metis has built differentiated competitiveness through forward-looking technologies and strategic layouts: Technologies like Hyperion meet the performance needs of AI applications, and the dual-chain and SDK model balance general and specialized needs, while decentralized sorting enhances ecological trust. The differentiation from other L2s mainly lies in aspects like the Hyperion architecture, dual-chain strategy, Metis SDK, and decentralized sorter.

High-Performance Execution Layer: Metis Hyperion is a high-performance Layer2 aimed at AI, which is said to achieve near real-time settlement and Web2-level response speed through Optimistic Rollup, parallel execution, and distributed sorting technology. Hyperion introduces MetisVM—a virtual machine customized for high-frequency trading and AI tasks, equipped with dynamic opcode optimization, parallel execution, and caching mechanisms, significantly improving smart contract execution efficiency. Simultaneously, Hyperion has designed on-chain inference support for AI inference, including dedicated precompiled contracts and execution engine optimizations.

Dual Chain Strategy (Andromeda + Hyperion): Metis retains the original Andromeda chain as a general-purpose L2, continuing to provide stable infrastructure for applications like DeFi; while simultaneously launching Hyperion specifically to serve AI scenarios. This 'dual network' architecture addresses the trade-off between generality and specialization: avoiding stagnation in homogeneous competition with other L2s, while also finding exclusive space for AI applications.

Metis SDK and Developer Ecosystem: Metis SDK is a modular toolkit aimed at developers, integrating blueprints, building tools, and standard interfaces, allowing developers to quickly build custom execution layers or applications. Metis SDK allows developers to quickly deploy Layer2/Layer3 using mature modules and facilitates smooth migration or interaction between projects on Andromeda and Hyperion, effectively improving ecological construction efficiency and interoperability.

Decentralized Sorter: In 2024, Metis successfully launched the industry's first fully decentralized sorter, transferring transaction sorting rights to community nodes and a staking mechanism, which achieves fault tolerance and censorship resistance through rotating consensus nodes and incentive token governance, completely eliminating single points of failure risk.

3. How will Metis respond if Ethereum focuses on L1?

Image Source: investx.fr

3.1 If the main chain does not distribute incentives, Metis will create its own incentive factory

Assuming Ethereum focuses on its own L1 development (such as underlying consensus and sharding upgrades) next, rather than continuing to directly expand L2, how can L2 platforms like Metis maintain and expand their influence? In the All in AI strategic roadmap released by Metis, the current strategy appears to be taking a modular and multi-chain route.

Firstly, Metis's dual-chain architecture and MetisSDK provide the capability to build multiple dedicated chains, while the launch of Hyperion marks Metis's transformation from a 'single L2' to a 'modular multi-chain infrastructure'. Through MetisSDK, any team can quickly create customized blockchains like building blocks—configuring parallel execution consensus, EVM-compatible layers, AI-optimized VMs, on-chain storage, and other components. This means Metis not only operates two chains but can also support more 'industry-specific chains': such as AI computing chains, DePIN infrastructure chains, and gaming chains, each meeting different scenario needs.

Secondly, Metis emphasizes cross-chain interoperability and collaborative ecology. The official roadmap and community communications frequently mention the introduction of cross-chain bridging and data/computation aggregation mechanisms. It is evident that Metis will integrate Chainlink CCIP, allowing assets and smart contracts to flow freely between Metis and other public chains. The Hyperion architecture also emphasizes 'shared bridges + cross-chain interconnection' and proposes 'decentralized data and computing aggregation', connecting AI applications with various data networks and computing resources.

The community is not only users but also direct participants and beneficiaries of network operations. By opening up the sorter role, anyone can become a block proposer through staking and receive sorting rewards. Meanwhile, Metis is planning to introduce an AI node operation incentive mechanism to encourage more developers to deploy inference services that provide on-chain AI capabilities.

3.2 Metis All in AI strategy, how to drive ecological development through AI

Let's look directly at the issue: currently, using AI services on-chain, such as transmitting results through oracles, poses obvious centralization risks and performance bottlenecks. To address these issues, Hyperion has collaborated with LazAI to introduce an AI agent framework called Alith. Developers can use the Alith SDK to write 'AI agents' and deploy them as contract modules on Hyperion. These agents can handle model selection, inference logic, fault response, and other functionalities. Other contracts on the chain can directly call them, enabling functionalities such as chatbots, prediction tools, or DAO assistants. Through mechanisms like precompiled contracts, Hyperion incorporates AI inference into the on-chain execution process, and inference results can also be fixed on-chain through logs, reproducible operations, or trusted execution environments, making them verifiable and trustworthy. This retains the transparency of blockchain while meeting the computational needs of AI, truly promoting 'AI on-chain'.

Additionally, Hyperion's parallel processing and low latency are particularly suitable for AI tasks; as long as there are no conflicts between requests, they can run simultaneously, achieving significantly higher efficiency than traditional L2 sequential execution. MetisVM is also specifically optimized for AI, improving performance with Rust/WASM and supporting various inputs such as text and images, allowing AI models to run directly on-chain. This entire design is aimed at realizing what Metis describes as 'the first Layer2 protocol that can locally run large language models on-chain'.