Exploration regards v0.26.0 of PolkaVM and is up-to-date with Summer 2025

• https://use.ink

• https://use.ink/docs/v6/

• https://github.com/novasamatech/substrate-sdk-ios

• https://github.com/novasamatech/substrate-sdk-android

• https://github.com/paritytech/polkavm

• https://github.com/paritytech/subxt

• https://protocol.berlin/

• PolkaVM, RISC-V based virtual machine https://github.com/paritytech/polkavm

• Revive recompiler, LLVM-based EVM to RISC-V recompiler

• As of August 2025, PolkaVM smart contracts with Ethereum compatibility are in early-stage development and may be unstable or incomplete.

• CoreVM, like Docker but for PolkaVM. It can run (mostly) unmodified native applications (like Doom or Quake)

• If planning to scale with zK, then zkVMs are the best choice, not PolkaVM nor RISC-V

• An alternative to zK is scaling with, shared economic security and proactive block validation

• RISC-V based virtual machine

• 64-bit registers, 4KB paged 32-bit address space

• Harvard Architecture: No program bytecode into memory, No self-modifying code

• Guaranteed to be 100% deterministic

• Guaranteed linear-time O(n) recompilation

• It's "RISC-V based" because, at some point, it eliminates all the instructions that it doesn't need to support or execute (floating point, atomics, SIMD, etc...)

• Continuations : Execution of a program over multiple blocks, if they reachthe gas limit or reach the block limit. All the state/stack/registers/memory is stored in a non-persistent DA layer. When the next block starts, the program can keep executing where it left off. It's made possible thanks to having an Addressable Stack.

• Has Formal Specification

• Solidity can be compiled to YUL, an intermediate representation for the EVM. Revive compiles the YUL IR to LLVM IR. LLVM compiler can then target RISC-V, and thus the PolkaVM.

git clone https://github.com/Neal-C/exploring_polkavm.git

cd exploring_polkavm

docker build -t neal-c-polkavm:latest .

docker run --name neal-c-polkavm neal-c-polkavm:latest

https://use.ink/docs/v6/getting-started/setup/

cargo-contract :

cargo install --locked --git https://github.com/use-ink/cargo-contract

Requirements: Rust >= 1.88.0 && cargo-contract 5.0.3

git clone https://github.com/Neal-C/exploring_polkavm.git

cd exploring_polkavm

cargo contract build

cargo contract test