Client and product names have been removed per NDA. Technical content is unchanged. This blog post was written for a Layer 2 blockchain protocol announcing a major developer tooling upgrade. The audience was primarily developers evaluating the platform for smart contract deployment.
Today we're announcing a major upgrade to [Framework].
[Framework] is an enhancement to the [Platform] tech stack that allows developers to build smart contracts using programming languages like Rust, C, and C++ instead of being limited to Solidity. Since launching on testnet, it has given developers the flexibility to write EVM-compatible contracts that compile to WebAssembly (WASM) while maintaining full interoperability with existing Solidity contracts.
This upgrade makes [Framework] significantly cheaper to use, more efficient to deploy, and easier to debug.
[Framework] adds a dual virtual machine environment to [Platform]. Developers can write smart contracts in Rust, C, or C++ that compile to WASM and run alongside the traditional Ethereum Virtual Machine. Contracts written in Rust can call Solidity contracts and vice versa. There's no trade-off between language choice and composability.
The Rust SDK and CLI tooling make it straightforward to go from first contract to deployment. For developers already working in Rust, the onboarding cost is minimal.
[Framework] already offered faster execution, lower gas fees, and reduced memory costs compared to standard EVM contracts. This upgrade pushes those advantages further and adds capabilities that were missing.
The upgrade introduces a cache system for [Framework] contract initialization that cuts gas fees by 2x to 4x for most operations and external data interactions. A new dynamic activation pricing policy adjusts costs based on real-time system demand rather than fixed rates. The result: developers can do more per transaction at a lower cost, and users pay less for the same operations.
Smart contract size has been a persistent constraint. This upgrade introduces custom Brotli compression dictionaries that significantly reduce contract size on deployment. It also integrates the Rust SDK trie cache directly into the [Framework] VM, so the data structures used for efficient storage access are now native to the virtual machine rather than handled externally. Smaller contracts and reduced database usage mean faster processing and lower storage costs.
Debugging on-chain programs has historically been painful. This upgrade adds full tracing support that lets developers replay transactions using gdb, giving them step-by-step visibility into what happened during execution. Host I/O data now propagates to the JavaScript tracer, providing detailed insight into how data moves between smart contracts and the host system. Fatal errors in WASM programs are now logged with context, so when something breaks, developers can see why without guessing.
The upgrade adds new Host I/O operations that expand what smart contracts can do natively. Common mathematical operations (DIV, MOD, EXP) are now available directly in the host environment, eliminating the overhead of handling them in WASM. Transient storage opcodes from EIP-1153 enable temporary data storage during execution for more complex state manipulation. And a new exit_early function lets WASM programs terminate and revert with relevant data when they hit an error or unexpected state, rather than failing silently.
Start Building -- The [Framework] testnet is open to all developers. Explore the documentation, contribute to the open-source SDKs, and deploy your first contract.