Caveat: i’m in no way a tech person, please understand that some of us are not here for the tech but for the usability and i think it what makes projects great.
I read that Terra is not EVM compatible. I have limited understanding of what it implies and that is why I wanted to open this topic:
Why is Terra not EVM compatible?
What are the advantage and drawbacks of being EVM compatible?
Should we become EVM compatible at some point? Why or why not?
Hey there! I’m a little late to the party here but I just stumbled across this thread. We’re building an EVM on Terra called Terranova: https://twitter.com/TerranovaEVM
To answer some of your questions:
EVM compatible means that a blockchain is capable of executing “EVM bytecode.” Terra is not EVM compatible by default because it uses a different type of virtual machine called a WebAssembly (Wasm) VM - which offers several benefits including smaller bytecode, faster execution.
The main drawback to a chain being EVM compatible from the start is that in the words of EVM designer Gavin Wood, the EVM is a very opinionated design. Given that Wasm has been around for years and exists on a variety of platforms, people have heavily optimized it. One popularly cited drawback to EVM compatibility on Terra specifically is that it might incentivize deploying poor quality forks of dApps from Ethereum.
I’m obviously voting with my feet but I feel EVM compatibility lets us quickly fill in the blanks in the Terra ecosystem while also bringing additional liquidity and use cases for $UST. And I expect that we can use this as a wedge to encourage people to try out native Terra development, too.
