Major update! Kusama has officially launched a brand new website today, but the most important thing is the launch of Ethereum-compatible smart contract functionality, based on the entirely new PolkaVM architecture.
This is not another EVM clone but a new Web3 contract platform that is faster, more modular, and compatible with Ethereum ecosystem tools.
A black phoenix, reborn from a canary!
Solidity smart contract preview version Part 1 is now live on Kusama
Parity announces that Part 1 of the PolkaVM smart contract preview version (supporting Solidity Ethereum-compatible smart contracts) is now live on Kusama's Asset Hub!
This marks Kusama once again becoming the 'Wild West' of Web3, where developers can now deploy Solidity contracts and usher in a new era of free exploration and innovation.
The release of PolkaVM smart contracts is phased, with the first part launched with the v1.6 upgrade on June 24, 2025. This version supports Solidity and Ethereum-compatible features, and although we use a RISC-V based PolkaVM instead of traditional EVM, Polkadot has achieved compatibility with Solidity language, HardHat toolchain, MetaMask, and other Ethereum development tools through compiler and RPC interfaces.
This release is a 'preview version', meaning that core functionalities are available for community developers to conduct early testing, deployment, and feedback. We encourage you to try, break the rules, and build the future. Currently, developers can test in the following ways:
Read the new contract documentation and tutorials: https://docs.polkadot.com/
Deploy on the test network Paseo or experience the real deployment environment on Kusama
Provide feedback on your user experience to help us optimize documentation and functionality
Additionally, Parity has announced that Part 2 will be released soon, which will include:
Cross-chain communication (XCM) and ERC-20 interface pre-compiled support
Support for OpenZeppelin templates and Foundry toolchains
Performance and latency optimization roadmap
More exciting integration plans will be announced successively
Since this is a preview version, there are some important considerations to be aware of:
1. Wallet compatibility: Some Ethereum wallets (like MetaMask) may report 'Invalid transaction' errors. It is recommended to use Hardhat for deployment and MetaMask for interaction.
2. Contract size limit: The bytecode generated by the current compiler is slightly larger than traditional EVM, which may trigger size limits. The team is continuously optimizing memory and the compiler.
We welcome everyone to submit bugs and feedback to help improve the experience and prepare for the formal launch on Polkadot Hub.
Start trying now! https://kusama.network/smart-contracts
Why does Polkadot introduce native smart contracts?
In Polkadot's initial design, it was hoped that all projects could achieve exclusive logic and maximum performance through independent parallel chains. However, the reality is that not every team and every application needs or is capable of operating a complete blockchain.
It's like a family of four; there's no need to buy a school bus as a family vehicle right away - it's costly, complex to manage, and far exceeds the needs.
And smart contracts are a more natural and lower-threshold way to enter. Moreover, the ecosystem of development tools is already mature, and developers are accustomed to using languages like Solidity for deployment, enabling rapid prototyping and verification of product paths. For the Polkadot ecosystem, this also means broader developer coverage and more flexible application innovation.
However, importantly, Polkadot has not given up on the original parallel chain architecture but further expanded its entry point - this is called Polkadot Cloud. Developers can quickly start through smart contracts, and as the product matures and the business scales, they can seamlessly migrate to dedicated chains to enjoy higher performance and independence.
Therefore, the route to introducing smart contracts does not deviate from the original route but adds a more friendly, pragmatic starting point on the original architecture.
What is the difference between Polkadot smart contracts and Ethereum contracts?
Many friends heard that Polkadot has launched Ethereum-compatible smart contracts, and their first reaction is: Oh, can I use Solidity to write contracts? That's right! But this is just a starting point.
You can continue to use familiar tools like Solidity, Hardhat, Remix, and MetaMask to deploy and interact, and the entire developer experience is almost as smooth as Ethereum.
But what Polkadot really wants to bring is not just 'also available' but 'better to use' - letting you experience the next era of smart contracts in terms of performance, scalability, and ecosystem synergy.
Faster: Low latency, quick finality, a leap in user experience
Polkadot's goal is 30 seconds finality, meaning a transaction can be completely confirmed in as little as half a minute without waiting for several minutes or hours, let alone Ethereum's often '7-day challenge period'.
Moreover, Polkadot plans to compress the block time to 500 milliseconds, which means that feedback after a user clicks a button is almost 'instant'. Developers working on on-chain games, trading platforms, and identity verification should feel the revolutionary improvement brought by this speed.
More stable: Predictable, traceable, and monitorable execution experience
Fast, and it needs to be fast every time.
To make contract execution more stable and controllable, Polkadot will also provide a Reliability Dashboard (performance dashboard) to help developers understand key data such as network latency, confirmation speed, and resource consumption in real-time. We believe that with these metrics, developers will be increasingly confident in deploying critical applications on Polkadot.
Stronger: Naturally multi-chain interoperability, deeply integrated with Polkadot
Polkadot not only provides Ethereum-compatible pre-compiled interfaces but also unlocks some 'superpowers' that only Polkadot has:
XCM cross-chain communication: Your contracts can 'speak' to the chains of the entire Polkadot ecosystem, no longer fighting alone;
Staking and governance integration: Call the native staking and voting mechanisms in contracts, creating a new paradigm of on-chain autonomy;
Future access to JAM protocol and PVM: Build new types of on-chain applications with high performance, controllable resources, and the ability to execute complex logic.
This is no longer 'another EVM-compatible chain' but a completely restructured smart contract execution platform that allows Web3 to move from 'able to run' to 'able to fly'.
More flexible: Smoothly evolve from smart contracts to parallel chains.
On other chains, you may have to decide from the beginning whether to 'create a chain' or 'deploy a contract', and once you make the wrong choice, it's hard to go back and costly.
But on Polkadot, you can start lightly from a contract project, just like 'renting a small car first'. When your project grows larger, user growth, and demand becomes complex, you can seamlessly migrate to your own parallel chain, just like naturally switching to a school bus. This path is uniquely designed by Polkadot, specifically for Web3 entrepreneurs.
Starting from compatibility, but not limited to compatibility
The current focus is on Ethereum compatibility, ensuring developers can smoothly start using familiar tools. However, starting from this foundation, Polkadot will continue to optimize performance, reduce latency, and enhance integration, providing the most solid base for all builders who want to build the future in the Web3 world.
Ethereum compatibility ≠ EVM compatibility?
Many people immediately associate 'Ethereum compatibility' with 'EVM compatibility' when they see it - but these two are not entirely the same. Today, we will clarify this important distinction in a more straightforward way.
Let's first talk about what 'Ethereum compatibility' is.
You can think of a smart contract platform as a 'black box'. Developers and users care not about the structure inside the box but about 'how to use it'. For example:
Users use MetaMask, wallets, and block explorers;
Developers use tools like Hardhat, Foundry, OpenZeppelin, etc.
If a platform allows these tools to be plug-and-play and seamlessly compatible, then it achieves 'Ethereum compatibility'.
For developers, this means almost no additional learning costs - you can write contracts, deploy contracts, and interact with contracts on Polkadot in the way you are familiar with.
So what is 'EVM compatibility'?
'EVM compatibility' means that this platform uses Ethereum's virtual machine (EVM) internally when executing contracts. Contracts are compiled into standard EVM bytecode and executed line by line in this virtual machine. However, Polkadot does not use EVM - Parity has developed a more powerful new engine: PolkaVM.
Although the execution principles differ, through toolchain adaptation, Polkadot still achieves a development experience akin to Ethereum. It's like driving a car; even though the engines are different, you still use the same steering wheel, accelerator, and brake.
So why use PolkaVM instead of EVM?
One word: Fast!
PolkaVM supports JIT (Just-In-Time compilation), which has higher execution efficiency compared to traditional EVM, can handle more complex logic, and responds faster - and Polkadot will continue to improve performance in the future (for example, target block time of 500 milliseconds, 30 seconds finality, etc.).
Of course, because the execution engines are different, there may be slight differences in some very low-level behaviors. However, for the vast majority of developers, this will hardly affect their usage and deployment.
So simply put:
Ethereum compatibility = Tool compatibility + Consistent experience
EVM compatibility = Execution engine is completely the same
Polkadot has chosen the path of 'outer consistency, stronger core'.
What you see is the Ethereum-compatible user experience, but running behind is the stronger PolkaVM engine.
Use familiar tools to write stronger contracts!
Is the cost of migrating EVM projects to Polkadot high?
This is one of the issues that many Ethereum developers care about most. Our answer is: the overall migration cost is very low, and the developer experience is almost seamlessly integrated, depending on the Solidity version your project currently uses.
Solidity compatibility: Supports version 0.8 and above
Currently, Polkadot's Solidity compiler supports mainstream versions 0.8 and above. If your project is relatively new and uses these versions, the migration process basically only requires:
Adjust the compilation configuration;
Replace the target network with Polkadot;
Then you can compile and deploy normally.
If you are using an older version of Solidity (such as 0.4 or 0.5), you may need to make some syntax or dependency adjustments to adapt to the current compiler. However, the overall workload is not large, and most teams can successfully complete the migration.
Toolchain support: Consistent developer experience
No matter whether you previously used Hardhat, Foundry, Remix, or standard templates provided by OpenZeppelin, you can continue using these familiar tools on Polkadot. At this stage, you may need to download our customized compiler version, which has built-in support for the Polkadot environment.
But the ideal goal is to achieve 'just change one configuration, and seamlessly deploy to Polkadot'. In the future, you won't need to install any additional plugins or modify toolchains; just change the target network to Polkadot in the configuration file as you would for deploying to Arbitrum or Optimism, and everything else remains the same. Your code, scripts, and testing processes - all can run.
This is the goal that Polkadot is advancing: to provide a development experience as close to Ethereum as possible, allowing more developers to migrate quickly with a low entry threshold.
In summary, it is:
What will it feel like to use Polkadot smart contracts?
For developers: It's just like using Ethereum! Your experience will be very 'familiar':
You can continue to use Solidity language
Deploy contracts using Hardhat, Foundry, Remix
Interact with contracts using MetaMask, OpenZeppelin, Web3.js
All operation processes are almost identical to Ethereum
The only difference is that you are deploying contracts that run on PolkaVM instead of EVM contracts. It is faster, more modular, and better suited for the future JAM ecosystem.
Additionally, if you are a team capable of developing a complete chain, Polkadot still supports you to take the parallel chain route. This 'contract-first + chain-level upgrade' path significantly lowers the entry barrier while also providing room for future upgrades.
If you are an 'off-chain' developer, you need not worry! For friends engaged in off-chain development such as wallets, apps, browser plugins, and front-end interfaces, Parity will provide a new tool called Facade in the future.
You do not need to worry about specific chain names, RPCs, formats, etc. - all you need to request is: 'How much balance does this account have?' or 'Has he set an identity?', and the Facade will automatically help you know which chain to go to and how to process it.
It’s like using a unified API, hiding the complexities of a multi-chain system behind the scenes and greatly simplifying the developer experience.
Moreover, the end-user experience will also be better! This rollout of smart contracts is also related to another important update - the migration of the Minimal Relay Chain.
It will bring a series of more 'user-friendly' changes:
This is a major upgrade in experience for developers working on UI, wallets, and DApps; for regular users, the entry threshold has become lower. In the future, users will be able to directly use USDT, USDC, etc., to pay for application usage fees (such as transaction fees) on Polkadot without needing to exchange currencies at an exchange first.
What is the relationship between PolkaVM smart contracts and Polkadot Hub?
PolkaVM smart contracts are part of the Polkadot Hub, not the entirety! Simply put, Polkadot Hub is a collection of products that includes identity, staking, governance, asset management, and more. PolkaVM smart contracts add a new capability to this Hub - allowing developers to write smart contracts using Solidity and deploy dApps.
A simple analogy is - the Hub is a supermarket, and contracts are our new hot food section - the logic is still on-chain, but it's just more convenient.
Currently, the implementation of this smart contract function relies on the efforts of multiple teams, such as Velocity Labs, PaperMoon, etc., which have participated in documentation writing, tool adaptation, and developer collaboration.
What are Polkadot Hub's promotion plans?
In simple terms, Polkadot Hub will be advanced in phases, with multiple teams within the ecosystem closely collaborating to make Polkadot Hub a more friendly platform for developers and users.
Phase one: Create a developer-friendly experience
The current top priority is to enhance the developer experience, especially regarding Ethereum compatibility. The goal is to make everyone feel using Polkadot Hub is as familiar as using Ethereum L2:
Write contracts using Solidity
Seamlessly connect with tools like Hardhat, Foundry, MetaMask
Allow developers to 'almost not need to learn new tools' to get started
We will also introduce key infrastructure partners, such as:
Asset custody services
Liquidity providers
Wallet and user-side integration tools
Laying the foundation for the entire ecosystem.
Phase two: Focus on supporting the development of the DeFi ecosystem
Because DeFi is the field that can most drive on-chain activity, the team plans to fully support DeFi projects in the next phase to promote liquidity, TVL, and user growth.
Launch the DeFi Builder Program (initiated by Velocity Labs)
Attract new projects to deploy on Polkadot Hub
Build a strong, sustainable DeFi infrastructure
Once DeFi becomes active, other types of applications (such as games, social, etc.) will also be easier to follow up and land.
Phase three: Support for innovative applications based on PolkaVM
Starting next year, Polkadot will strongly support projects that utilize PolkaVM's high-performance features, such as:
Support JIT compilation (Just-In-Time compilation)
Can run complex algorithms or cryptographic logic smart contracts
Truly capable of breaking through the performance bottlenecks of traditional blockchain contracts Web3 applications
To support the development of these applications, plans will include:
Hold more PolkaVM-exclusive hackathons
Launch more online and offline activities for developers
Establish developer communities and support systems
Additionally, the Polkadot ecosystem team will participate in multiple industry conferences this year and continue to hold online/offline hackathons to help more early developers quickly deploy projects on Polkadot Hub!
Polkadot Hub is following a path of 'foundations first, ecosystem second, innovation third'. Starting from Ethereum compatibility to attract developers, then supporting DeFi, and finally releasing the true potential of PolkaVM. We look forward to seeing a thriving PolkaVM ecosystem as the entire promotion plan rolls out!
We welcome all interested developers to use PolkaVM and join the construction of Polkadot Hub!
