evm
Abstract
This document defines the specification of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) as a Cosmos SDK module. Since the introduction of Ethereum in 2015, the ability to control digital assets through smart contracts has attracted a large community of developers to build decentralized applications on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This community is continuously creating extensive tooling and introducing standards, which are further increasing the adoption rate of EVM compatible technology. The growth of EVM-based chains (e.g. Ethereum), however, has uncovered several scalability challenges that are often referred to as the trilemma of decentralization, security, and scalability. Developers are frustrated by high gas fees, slow transaction speed & throughput, and chain-specific governance that can only undergo slow change because of its wide range of deployed applications. A solution is required that eliminates these concerns for developers, who build applications within a familiar EVM environment. Thex/evm module provides this EVM familiarity on a scalable, high-throughput Proof-of-Stake blockchain.
It is built as a Cosmos SDK module
which allows for the deployment of smart contracts,
interaction with the EVM state machine (state transitions),
and the use of EVM tooling.
It can be used on Cosmos application-specific blockchains,
which alleviate the aforementioned concerns through high transaction throughput
via Tendermint Core, fast transaction finality,
and horizontal scalability via IBC.
The x/evm module is part of the ethermint library.
Contents
Module Architecture
NOTE:: If you’re not familiar with the overall module structure from the SDK modules, please check this document as prerequisite reading.
Concepts
EVM
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is a computation engine which can be thought of as one single entity maintained by thousands of connected computers (nodes) running an Ethereum client. As a virtual machine (VM), the EVM is responsible for computing changes to the state deterministically regardless of its environment (hardware and OS). This means that every node has to get the exact same result given an identical starting state and transaction (tx). The EVM is considered to be the part of the Ethereum protocol that handles the deployment and execution of smart contracts. To make a clear distinction:- The Ethereum protocol describes a blockchain, in which all Ethereum accounts and smart contracts live. It has only one canonical state (a data structure, which keeps all accounts) at any given block in the chain.
- The EVM, however, is the state machine that defines the rules for computing a new valid state from block to block. It is an isolated runtime, which means that code running inside the EVM has no access to network, filesystem, or other processes (not external APIs).
x/evm module implements the EVM as a Cosmos SDK module.
It allows users to interact with the EVM by submitting Ethereum txs
and executing their containing messages on the given state to evoke a state transition.
State
The Ethereum state is a data structure, implemented as a Merkle Patricia Tree, that keeps all accounts on the chain. The EVM makes changes to this data structure resulting in a new state with a different state root. Ethereum can therefore be seen as a state chain that transitions from one state to another by executing transactions in a block using the EVM. A new block of txs can be described through its block header (parent hash, block number, time stamp, nonce, receipts,…).Accounts
There are two types of accounts that can be stored in state at a given address:- Externally Owned Account (EOA): Has nonce (tx counter) and balance
- Smart Contract: Has nonce, balance, (immutable) code hash, storage root (another Merkle Patricia Trie)
Architecture
The EVM operates as a stack-based machine. It’s main architecture components consist of:- Virtual ROM: contract code is pulled into this read only memory when processing txs
- Machine state (volatile): changes as the EVM runs and is wiped clean after processing each tx
- Program counter (PC)
- Gas: keeps track of how much gas is used
- Stack and Memory: compute state changes
- Access to account storage (persistent)
State Transitions with Smart Contracts
Typically smart contracts expose a public ABI, which is a list of supported ways a user can interact with a contract. To interact with a contract and invoke a state transition, a user will submit a tx carrying any amount of gas and a data payload formatted according to the ABI, specifying the type of interaction and any additional parameters. When the tx is received, the EVM executes the smart contracts’ EVM bytecode using the tx payload.Executing EVM bytecode
A contract’s EVM bytecode consists of basic operations (add, multiply, store, etc…), called Opcodes. Each Opcode execution requires gas that needs to be paid with the tx. The EVM is therefore considered quasi-turing complete, as it allows any arbitrary computation, but the amount of computations during a contract execution is limited to the amount of gas provided in the tx. Each Opcode’s gas cost reflects the cost of running these operations on actual computer hardware (e.g.ADD = 3gas and SSTORE = 100gas).
To calculate the gas consumption of a tx, the gas cost is multiplied by the gas price,
which can change depending on the demand of the network at the time.
If the network is under heavy load, you might have to pay a higher gas price to get your tx executed.
If the gas limit is hit (out of gas exception) no changes to the Ethereum state are applied,
except that the sender’s nonce increments and their balance goes down to pay for wasting the EVM’s time.
Smart contracts can also call other smart contracts.
Each call to a new contract creates a new instance of the EVM (including a new stack and memory).
Each call passes the sandbox state to the next EVM.
If the gas runs out, all state changes are discarded.
Otherwise, they are kept.
For further reading, please refer to:
Paxeer Network as Geth implementation
Paxeer Network contains an implementation of the Ethereum protocol in Golang (Geth) as a Cosmos SDK module. Geth includes an implementation of the EVM to compute state transitions. Have a look at the go-ethereum source code to see how the EVM opcodes are implemented. Just as Geth can be run as an Ethereum node, Paxeer Network can be run as a node to compute state transitions with the EVM. Paxeer Network supports Geth’s standard Ethereum JSON-RPC APIs in order to be Web3 and EVM compatible.JSON-RPC
JSON-RPC is a stateless, lightweight remote procedure call (RPC) protocol. Primarily this specification defines several data structures and the rules around their processing. It is transport agnostic in that the concepts can be used within the same process, over sockets, over HTTP, or in many various message passing environments. It uses JSON (RFC 4627) as a data format.JSON-RPC Example: eth_call
The JSON-RPC method eth_call allows you
to execute messages against contracts.
Usually, you need to send a transaction to a Geth node to include it in the mempool,
then nodes gossip between each other and eventually the transaction is included in a block and gets executed.
eth_call however lets you send data to a contract and see what happens without committing a transaction.
In the Geth implementation, calling the endpoint roughly goes through the following steps:
- The
eth_callrequest is transformed to call thefunc (s *PublicBlockchainAPI) Call()function using theethnamespace Call()is given the transaction arguments, the block to call against and optional arguments that modify the state to call against. It then callsDoCall().DoCall()transforms the arguments into aethtypes.message, instantiates an EVM and applies the message withcore.ApplyMessageApplyMessage()calls the state transitionTransitionDb()TransitionDb()eitherCreate()s a new contract orCall()s a contractevm.Call()runs the interpreterevm.interpreter.Run()to execute the message. If the execution fails, the state is reverted to a snapshot taken before the execution and gas is consumed.Run()performs a loop to execute the opcodes.
eth_callrequest is transformed to call thefunc (e *PublicAPI) Callfunction using theethnamespaceCall()callsdoCall()doCall()transforms the arguments into aEthCallRequestand callsEthCall()using the query client of the evm module.EthCall()transforms the arguments into aethtypes.messageand calls `ApplyMessageWithConfig()ApplyMessageWithConfig()instantiates an EVM and eitherCreate()s a new contract orCall()s a contract using the Geth implementation.
StateDB
TheStateDB interface from go-ethereum
represents an EVM database for full state querying.
EVM state transitions are enabled by this interface, which in the x/evm module is implemented by the Keeper.
The implementation of this interface is what makes Paxeer Network EVM compatible.
Consensus Engine
The application using thex/evm module interacts with the Tendermint Core Consensus Engine
over an Application Blockchain Interface (ABCI).
Together, the application and Tendermint Core form the programs that run a complete blockchain
and combine business logic with decentralized data storage.
Ethereum transactions which are submitted to the x/evm module take part in this consensus process
before being executed and changing the application state.
We encourage to understand the basics of the Tendermint consensus engine
in order to understand state transitions in detail.
Transaction Logs
On everyx/evm transaction, the result contains the Ethereum Logs from the state machine execution
that are used by the JSON-RPC Web3 server for filter querying and for processing the EVM Hooks.
The tx logs are stored in the transient store during tx execution
and then emitted through cosmos events after the transaction has been processed.
They can be queried via gRPC and JSON-RPC.
Block Bloom
Bloom is the bloom filter value in bytes for each block that can be used for filter queries. The block bloom value is stored in the transient store and then emitted through a cosmos event duringEndBlock processing.
They can be queried via gRPC and JSON-RPC.
:::tip
👉 Note: Since they are not stored on state, Transaction Logs and Block Blooms are not persisted after upgrades.
A user must use an archival node after upgrades in order to obtain legacy chain events.
:::
State
This section gives you an overview of the objects stored in thex/evm module state,
functionalities that are derived from the go-ethereum StateDB interface,
and its implementation through the Keeper as well as the state implementation at genesis.
State Objects
Thex/evm module keeps the following objects in state:
State
| Description | Key | Value | Store | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Code | Smart contract bytecode | []byte{1} + []byte(address) | []byte{code} | KV |
| Storage | Smart contract storage | []byte{2} + [32]byte{key} | [32]byte(value) | KV |
| Block Bloom | Block bloom filter, used to accumulate the bloom filter of current block, emitted to events at end blocker. | []byte{1} + []byte(tx.Hash) | protobuf([]Log) | Transient |
| Tx Index | Index of current transaction in current block. | []byte{2} | BigEndian(uint64) | Transient |
| Log Size | Number of the logs emitted so far in current block. Used to decide the log index of following logs. | []byte{3} | BigEndian(uint64) | Transient |
| Gas Used | Amount of gas used by ethereum messages of current cosmos-sdk tx, it’s necessary when cosmos-sdk tx contains multiple ethereum messages. | []byte{4} | BigEndian(uint64) | Transient |
StateDB
TheStateDB interface is implemented by the StateDB in the x/evm/statedb module
to represent an EVM database for full state querying of both contracts and accounts.
Within the Ethereum protocol, StateDBs are used to store anything
within the IAVL tree and take care of caching and storing nested states.
StateDB in the x/evm provides the following functionalities:
CRUD of Ethereum accounts
You can createEthAccount instances from the provided address
and set the value to store on the AccountKeeperwith createAccount().
If an account with the given address already exists,
this function also resets any preexisting code and storage associated with that address.
An account’s coin balance can be is managed through the BankKeeper
and can be read with GetBalance() and updated with AddBalance() and SubBalance().
GetBalance()returns the EVM denomination balance of the provided address. The denomination is obtained from the module parameters.AddBalance()adds the given amount to the address balance coin by minting new coins and transferring them to the address. The coin denomination is obtained from the module parameters.SubBalance()subtracts the given amount from the address balance by transferring the coins to an escrow account and then burning them. The coin denomination is obtained from the module parameters. This function performs a no-op if the amount is negative or the user doesn’t have enough funds for the transfer.
Sequence via the auth module AccountKeeper.
GetNonce()retrieves the account with the given address and returns the tx sequence (i.e nonce). The function performs a no-op if the account is not found.SetNonce()sets the given nonce as the sequence of the address’ account. If the account doesn’t exist, a new one will be created from the address.
EVMKeeper
and it can be queried with GetCodeHash() ,GetCode() & GetCodeSize()and updated with SetCode().
GetCodeHash()fetches the account from the store and returns its code hash. If the account doesn’t exist or is not an EthAccount type, it returns the empty code hash value.GetCode()returns the code byte array associated with the given address. If the code hash from the account is empty, this function returns nil.SetCode()stores the code byte array to the application KVStore and sets the code hash to the given account. The code is deleted from the store if it is empty.GetCodeSize()returns the size of the contract code associated with this object, or zero if none.
AddRefund()adds the given amount of gas to the in-memory refund value.SubRefund()subtracts the given amount of gas from the in-memory refund value. This function will panic if gas amount is greater than the current refund.GetRefund()returns the amount of gas available for return after the tx execution finalizes. This value is reset to 0 on every transaction.
EVMKeeper.
It can be queried with GetCommittedState(), GetState() and updated with SetState().
GetCommittedState()returns the value set in store for the given key hash. If the key is not registered this function returns the empty hash.GetState()returns the in-memory dirty state for the given key hash, if not exist load the committed value from KVStore.SetState()sets the given hashes (key, value) to the state. If the value hash is empty, this function deletes the key from the state, the new value is kept in dirty state at first, and will be committed to KVStore in the end.
Suicide()marks the given account as suicided and clears the account balance of the EVM tokens.HasSuicided()queries the in-memory flag to check if the account has been marked as suicided in the current transaction. Accounts that are suicided will be returned as non-nil during queries and “cleared” after the block has been committed.
Exist() and Empty().
Exist()returns true if the given account exists in store or if it has been marked as suicided.Empty()returns true if the address meets the following conditions:- nonce is 0
- balance amount for evm denom is 0
- account code hash is empty
EIP2930 functionality
Supports a transaction type that contains an access list, a list of addresses and storage keys, that the transaction plans to access. The access list state is kept in memory and discarded after the transaction committed.PrepareAccessList()handles the preparatory steps for executing a state transition in regard to both EIP-2929 and EIP-2930. This method should only be called if Yolov3/Berlin/2929+2930 is applicable at the current number.- Add sender to access list (EIP-2929)
- Add destination to access list (EIP-2929)
- Add precompiles to access list (EIP-2929)
- Add the contents of the optional tx access list (EIP-2930)
AddressInAccessList()returns true if the address is registered.SlotInAccessList()checks if the address and the slots are registered.AddAddressToAccessList()adds the given address to the access list. If the address is already in the access list, this function performs a no-op.AddSlotToAccessList()adds the given (address, slot) to the access list. If the address and slot are already in the access list, this function performs a no-op.
Snapshot state and Revert functionality
The EVM uses state-reverting exceptions to handle errors. Such an exception will undo all changes made to the state in the current call (and all its sub-calls), and the caller could handle the error and don’t propagate. You can useSnapshot() to identify the current state with a revision
and revert the state to a given revision with RevertToSnapshot() to support this feature.
Snapshot()creates a new snapshot and returns the identifier.RevertToSnapshot(rev)undo all the modifications up to the snapshot identified asrev.
Ethereum Transaction logs
WithAddLog() you can append the given Ethereum Log to the list of logs
associated with the transaction hash kept in the current state.
This function also fills in the tx hash, block hash, tx index and log index fields before setting the log to store.
Keeper
The EVM moduleKeeper grants access to the EVM module state
and implements statedb.Keeper interface to support the StateDB implementation.
The Keeper contains a store key that allows the DB
to write to a concrete subtree of the multistore that is only accessible by the EVM module.
Instead of using a trie and database for querying and persistence (the StateDB implementation),
Paxeer Network uses the Cosmos KVStore (key-value store) and Cosmos SDK Keeper to facilitate state transitions.
To support the interface functionality, it imports 4 module Keepers:
auth: CRUD accountsbank: accounting (supply) and CRUD of balancesstaking: query historical headersfee market: EIP-1559 base fee for processingDynamicFeeTxafter theLondonhard fork has been activated on theChainConfigparameters
Genesis State
Thex/evm module GenesisState defines the state necessary for initializing the chain from a previous exported height.
It contains the GenesisAccounts and the module parameters
Genesis Accounts
TheGenesisAccount type corresponds to an adaptation of the Ethereum GenesisAccount type.
It defines an account to be initialized in the genesis state.
Its main difference is that the one on Paxeer Network uses a custom Storage type
that uses a slice instead of maps for the evm State (due to non-determinism),
and that it doesn’t contain the private key field.
It is also important to note that since the auth module on the Cosmos SDK manages the account state,
the Address field must correspond to an existing EthAccount
that is stored in the auth’s module Keeper (i.e AccountKeeper).
Addresses use the EIP55 hex format
on genesis.json.
State Transitions
Thex/evm module allows for users to submit Ethereum transactions (Tx)
and execute their containing messages to evoke state transitions on the given state.
Users submit transactions client-side to broadcast it to the network.
When the transaction is included in a block during consensus, it is executed server-side.
We highly recommend to understand the basics of the Tendermint consensus engine
to understand the State Transitions in detail.
Client-Side
:::tip 👉 This is based on theeth_sendTransaction JSON-RPC
:::
- A user submits a transaction via one of the available JSON-RPC endpoints
using an Ethereum-compatible client or wallet (eg Metamask, WalletConnect, Ledger, etc):
a. eth (public) namespace:
eth_sendTransactioneth_sendRawTransactionb. personal (private) namespace:personal_sendTransaction
- An instance of
MsgEthereumTxis created after populating the RPC transaction usingSetTxDefaultsto fill missing tx arguments with default values - The
Txfields are validated (stateless) usingValidateBasic() - The
Txis signed using the key associated with the sender address and the latest ethereum hard fork (London,Berlin, etc) from theChainConfig - The
Txis built from the msg fields using the Cosmos Config builder - The
Txis broadcast in sync mode to ensure to wait for aCheckTxexecution response. Transactions are validated by the application usingCheckTx(), before being added to the mempool of the consensus engine. - JSON-RPC user receives a response with the
RLPhash of the transaction fields. This hash is different from the default hash used by SDK Transactions that calculates thesha256hash of the transaction bytes.
Server-Side
Once a block (containing theTx) has been committed during consensus,
it is applied to the application in a series of ABCI msgs server-side.
Each Tx is handled by the application by calling RunTx.
After a stateless validation on each sdk.Msg in the Tx,
the AnteHandler confirms whether the Tx is an Ethereum or SDK transaction.
As an Ethereum transaction it’s containing msgs are then handled
by the x/evm module to update the application’s state.
AnteHandler
TheanteHandler is run for every transaction.
It checks if the Tx is an Ethereum transaction and routes it to an internal ante handler.
Here, Txs are handled using EthereumTx extension options to process them differently than normal Cosmos SDK transactions.
The antehandler runs through a series of options and their AnteHandle functions for each Tx:
EthSetUpContextDecorator()is adapted from SetUpContextDecorator from cosmos-sdk, it ignores gas consumption by setting the gas meter to infiniteEthValidateBasicDecorator(evmKeeper)validates the fields of an Ethereum type CosmosTxmsgEthSigVerificationDecorator(evmKeeper)validates that the registered chain id is the same as the one on the message, and that the signer address matches the one defined on the message. It’s not skipped for RecheckTx, because it setFromaddress which is critical from other ante handler to work. Failure in RecheckTx will prevent tx to be included into block, especially when CheckTx succeed, in which case user won’t see the error message.EthAccountVerificationDecorator(ak, bankKeeper, evmKeeper)will verify, that the sender balance is greater than the total transaction cost. The account will be set to store if it doesn’t exist, i.e cannot be found on store. This AnteHandler decorator will fail if:- any of the msgs is not a MsgEthereumTx
- from address is empty
- account balance is lower than the transaction cost
EthNonceVerificationDecorator(ak)validates that the transaction nonces are valid and equivalent to the sender account’s current nonce.EthGasConsumeDecorator(evmKeeper)validates that the Ethereum tx message has enough to cover intrinsic gas (during CheckTx only) and that the sender has enough balance to pay for the gas cost. Intrinsic gas for a transaction is the amount of gas that the transaction uses before the transaction is executed. The gas is a constant value plus any cost incurred by additional bytes of data supplied with the transaction. This AnteHandler decorator will fail if:- the transaction contains more than one message
- the message is not a MsgEthereumTx
- sender account cannot be found
- transaction’s gas limit is lower than the intrinsic gas
- user doesn’t have enough balance to deduct the transaction fees (gas_limit * gas_price)
- transaction or block gas meter runs out of gas
CanTransferDecorator(evmKeeper, feeMarketKeeper)creates an EVM from the message and calls the BlockContext CanTransfer function to see if the address can execute the transaction.EthIncrementSenderSequenceDecorator(ak)handles incrementing the sequence of the signer (i.e sender). If the transaction is a contract creation, the nonce will be incremented during the transaction execution and not within this AnteHandler decorator.
authante.NewMempoolFeeDecorator(), authante.NewTxTimeoutHeightDecorator()
and authante.NewValidateMemoDecorator(ak) are the same as for a Cosmos Tx.
Click here for more on the anteHandler.
EVM module
After authentication through theantehandler,
each sdk.Msg (in this case MsgEthereumTx) in the Tx
is delivered to the Msg Handler in the x/evm module
and runs through the following the steps:
- Convert
Msgto an ethereumTxtype - Apply
TxwithEVMConfigand attempt to perform a state transition, that will only be persisted (committed) to the underlying KVStore if the transaction does not fail:- Confirm that
EVMConfigis created - Create the ethereum signer using chain config value from
EVMConfig - Set the ethereum transaction hash to the (impermanent) transient store so that it’s also available on the StateDB functions
- Generate a new EVM instance
- Confirm that EVM params for contract creation (
EnableCreate) and contract execution (EnableCall) are enabled - Apply message. If
Toaddress isnil, create new contract using code as deployment code. Else call contract at given address with the given input as parameters - Calculate gas used by the evm operation
- Confirm that
- If
Txapplied successfully- Execute EVM
Txpostprocessing hooks. If hooks return error, revert the wholeTx - Refund gas according to Ethereum gas accounting rules
- Update block bloom filter value using the logs generated from the tx
- Emit SDK events for the transaction fields and tx logs
- Execute EVM
Transactions
This section defines thesdk.Msg concrete types that result in the state transitions defined on the previous section.
MsgEthereumTx
An EVM state transition can be achieved by using the MsgEthereumTx.
This message encapsulates an Ethereum transaction data (TxData) as a sdk.Msg.
It contains the necessary transaction data fields.
Note, that the MsgEthereumTx implements both the sdk.Msg
and sdk.Tx interfaces.
Normally, SDK messages only implement the former, while the latter is a group of messages bundled together.
Fromfield is defined and the address is invalidTxDatastateless validation fails
- Any of the custom
AnteHandlerEthereum decorators checks fail:- Minimum gas amount requirements for transaction
- Tx sender account doesn’t exist or hasn’t enough balance for fees
- Account sequence doesn’t match the transaction
Data.AccountNonce - Message signature verification fails
- EVM contract creation (i.e
evm.Create) fails, orevm.Callfails
Conversion
TheMsgEthreumTx can be converted to the go-ethereum Transaction and Message types
in order to create and call evm contracts.
Signing
In order for the signature verification to be valid, theTxData must contain the v | r | s values from the Signer.
Sign calculates a secp256k1 ECDSA signature and signs the transaction.
It takes a keyring signer and the chainID to sign an Ethereum transaction according to EIP-155 standard.
This method mutates the transaction as it populates the V, R, S fields of the Transaction’s Signature.
The function will fail if the sender address is not defined for the msg
or if the sender is not registered on the keyring.
TxData
TheMsgEthereumTx supports the 3 valid Ethereum transaction data types from go-ethereum:
LegacyTx, AccessListTx and DynamicFeeTx.
These types are defined as protobuf messages
and packed into a proto.Any interface type in the MsgEthereumTx field.
LegacyTx: EIP-155 transaction typeDynamicFeeTx: EIP-1559 transaction type. Enabled by London hard fork blockAccessListTx: EIP-2930 transaction type. Enabled by Berlin hard fork block
LegacyTx
The transaction data of regular Ethereum transactions.
GasPriceis invalid (nil, negative or out of int256 bound)Fee(gasprice * gaslimit) is invalidAmountis invalid (negative or out of int256 bound)Toaddress is invalid (non valid ethereum hex address)
DynamicFeeTx
The transaction data of EIP-1559 dynamic fee transactions.
GasTipCapis invalid (nil, negative or overflows int256)GasFeeCapis invalid (nil, negative or overflows int256)GasFeeCapis less thanGasTipCapFee(gas price * gas limit) is invalid (overflows int256)Amountis invalid (negative or overflows int256)Toaddress is invalid (non-valid ethereum hex address)ChainIDisnil
AccessListTx
The transaction data of EIP-2930 access list transactions.
GasPriceis invalid (nil, negative or overflows int256)Fee(gas price * gas limit) is invalid (overflows int256)Amountis invalid (negative or overflows int256)Toaddress is invalid (non-valid ethereum hex address)ChainIDisnil
ABCI
The Application Blockchain Interface (ABCI) allows the application to interact with the Tendermint Consensus engine. The application maintains several ABCI connections with Tendermint. The most relevant for thex/evm is the Consensus connection at Commit.
This connection is responsible for block execution and calls the functions InitChain
(containing InitGenesis), BeginBlock, DeliverTx, EndBlock, Commit .
InitChain is only called the first time a new blockchain is started
and DeliverTx is called for each transaction in the block.
InitGenesis
InitGenesis initializes the EVM module genesis state by setting the GenesisState fields to the store.
In particular, it sets the parameters and genesis accounts (state and code).
ExportGenesis
TheExportGenesis ABCI function exports the genesis state of the EVM module.
In particular, it retrieves all the accounts with their bytecode, balance and storage, the transaction logs,
and the EVM parameters and chain configuration.
BeginBlock
The EVM moduleBeginBlock logic is executed prior to handling the state transitions from the transactions.
The main objective of this function is to:
- Set the context for the current block so that the block header, store, gas meter, etc.
are available to the
Keeperonce one of theStateDBfunctions are called during EVM state transitions. - Set the EIP-155
ChainIDnumber (obtained from the full chain-id), in case it hasn’t been set before duringInitChain
EndBlock
The EVM moduleEndBlock logic occurs after executing all the state transitions from the transactions.
The main objective of this function is to:
- Emit Block bloom events
- This is due for web3 compatibility as the Ethereum headers contain this type as a field. The JSON-RPC service uses this event query to construct an Ethereum header from a Tendermint header.
- The block bloom filter value is obtained from the transient store and then emitted
Hooks
Thex/evm module implements an EvmHooks interface that extend and customize the Tx processing logic externally.
This supports EVM contracts to call native cosmos modules by
- defining a log signature and emitting the specific log from the smart contract,
- recognizing those logs in the native tx processing code, and
- converting them to native module calls.
PostTxProcessing hook that registers custom Tx hooks in the EvmKeeper.
These Tx hooks are processed after the EVM state transition is finalized and doesn’t fail.
Note that there are no default hooks implemented in the EVM module.
PostTxProcessing
PostTxProcessing is only called after an EVM transaction finished successfully
and delegates the call to underlying hooks.
If no hook has been registered, this function returns with a nil error.
nil instead.
The error returned by the hooks is translated to a VM error failed to process native logs,
the detailed error message is stored in the return value.
The message is sent to native modules asynchronously, there’s no way for the caller to catch and recover the error.
Use Case: Call Native ERC20 Module on Paxeer Network
Here is an example taken from the Paxeer Network erc20 module that shows how theEVMHooks supports a contract calling a native module
to convert ERC-20 Tokens into Cosmos native Coins.
Following the steps from above.
You can define and emit a Transfer log signature in the smart contract like this:
BankSendHook to the EvmKeeper.
It recognizes the ethereum tx Log and converts it to a call to the bank module’s SendCoinsFromAccountToAccount method:
app.go:
Events
Thex/evm module emits the Cosmos SDK events after a state execution.
The EVM module emits events of the relevant transaction fields, as well as the transaction logs (ethereum events).
MsgEthereumTx
| Type | Attribute Key | Attribute Value |
|---|---|---|
| ethereum_tx | "amount" | {amount} |
| ethereum_tx | "recipient" | {hex_address} |
| ethereum_tx | "contract" | {hex_address} |
| ethereum_tx | "txHash" | {tendermint_hex_hash} |
| ethereum_tx | "ethereumTxHash" | {hex_hash} |
| ethereum_tx | "txIndex" | {tx_index} |
| ethereum_tx | "txGasUsed" | {gas_used} |
| tx_log | "txLog" | {tx_log} |
| message | "sender" | {eth_address} |
| message | "action" | "ethereum" |
| message | "module" | "evm" |
EndBlock for the filter query block bloom.
ABCI
| Type | Attribute Key | Attribute Value |
|---|---|---|
| block_bloom | "bloom" | string(bloomBytes) |
Parameters
The evm module contains the following parameters:Params
| Key | Type | Default Value |
|---|---|---|
EVMDenom | string | "ahpx" |
EnableCreate | bool | true |
EnableCall | bool | true |
ExtraEIPs | []int | TBD |
ChainConfig | ChainConfig | See ChainConfig |
AllowUnprotectedTxs | bool | false |
ActivePrecompiles | []string | [] |
AccessControl | AccessControl | Permissionless EVM |
EVM denom
The evm denomination parameter defines the token denomination used on the EVM state transitions and gas consumption for EVM messages. For example, on Ethereum, theevm_denom would be ETH.
In the case of Paxeer Network, the default denomination is the atto Paxeer Network.
In terms of precision, Paxeer Network and ETH share the same value,
i.e. 1 Paxeer Network = 10^18 atto Paxeer Network and 1 ETH = 10^18 wei.
:::tip
Note: SDK applications that want to import the EVM module as a dependency
will need to set their own evm_denom (i.e not "ahpx").
:::
Enable Create
(deprecated in v19.0.0) The enable create parameter toggles state transitions that use thevm.Create function.
When the parameter is disabled, it will prevent all contract creation functionality.
Enable Transfer
(deprecated in v19.0.0) The enable transfer toggles state transitions that use thevm.Call function.
When the parameter is disabled, it will prevent transfers between accounts and executing a smart contract call.
Extra EIPs
The extra EIPs parameter defines the set of activateable Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) on the Ethereum VMConfig that apply custom jump tables.
:::tip
NOTE: some of these EIPs are already enabled by the chain configuration, depending on the hard fork number.
:::
The supported activateable EIPS are:
Chain Config
TheChainConfig is a protobuf wrapper type
that contains the same fields as the go-ethereum ChainConfig parameters,
but using *sdk.Int types instead of *big.Int.
By default, all block configuration fields but ConstantinopleBlock, are enabled at genesis (height 0).
ChainConfig Defaults
| Name | Default Value |
|---|---|
| HomesteadBlock | 0 |
| DAOForkBlock | 0 |
| DAOForkSupport | true |
| EIP150Block | 0 |
| EIP150Hash | 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 |
| EIP155Block | 0 |
| EIP158Block | 0 |
| ByzantiumBlock | 0 |
| ConstantinopleBlock | 0 |
| PetersburgBlock | 0 |
| IstanbulBlock | 0 |
| MuirGlacierBlock | 0 |
| BerlinBlock | 0 |
| LondonBlock | 0 |
| ArrowGlacierBlock | 0 |
| GrayGlacierBlock | 0 |
| MergeNetsplitBlock | 0 |
| ShanghaiBlock | 0 |
| CancunBlock. | 0 |
Allow Unprotected Transactions
This parameter enforces EIP-155 replay protection globally for all nodes partaking in consensus. If disabled, this delegates control of replay protection to the individual nodes (read more here).Active Precompiles
This parameter governs which EVM Extensions are enabled on the given network. It accepts a list of addresses in Hex format, which is evaluated in EVM transactions to only allow interactions with the selected precompiled contracts.Access Control
(added in v19.0.0) This parameter enables detailed control of the EVM. The former parametersenable_create and enable_call have been extended
to give exact control of who can access these features.
By default, the EVM is permissionless, meaning that everyone can deploy smart contracts
and send EVM transaction unless they have specifically been blacklisted.
The blacklisted addresses can be defined in the corresponding AccessControlList.
By setting the individual AccessControlType for either the create or call functionality as restricted,
the EVM does not accept further interactions with the specific functionality.
When defining the control type as being permissioned, the given list of addresses is
interpreted as a collection of whitelisted addresses, which are the only ones capable of
deploying contracts or calling the EVM respectively.
Client
A user can query and interact with theevm module using the CLI, JSON-RPC, gRPC or REST.
CLI
Find below a list ofhyperpaxd commands added with the x/evm module.
You can obtain the full list by using the hyperpaxd -h command.
Queries
Thequery commands allow users to query evm state.
code
Allows users to query the smart contract code at a given address.
storage
Allows users to query storage for an account with a given key and height.
Transactions
Thetx commands allow users to interact with the evm module.
raw
Allows users to build cosmos transactions from raw ethereum transaction.
JSON-RPC
For an overview on the JSON-RPC methods and namespaces supported on Paxeer Network, please refer to https://docs.paxeer.app/develop/api/ethereum-json-rpc/methodslgRPC
Queries
| Verb | Method | Description |
|---|---|---|
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/Account | Get an Ethereum account |
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/CosmosAccount | Get an Ethereum account’s Cosmos Address |
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/ValidatorAccount | Get an Ethereum account’s from a validator consensus Address |
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/Balance | Get the balance of a the EVM denomination for a single EthAccount. |
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/Storage | Get the balance of all coins for a single account |
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/Code | Get the balance of all coins for a single account |
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/Params | Get the parameters of x/evm module |
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/EthCall | Implements the eth_call rpc api |
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/EstimateGas | Implements the eth_estimateGas rpc api |
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/TraceTx | Implements the debug_traceTransaction rpc api |
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Query/TraceBlock | Implements the debug_traceBlockByNumber and debug_traceBlockByHash rpc api |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/account/{address} | Get an Ethereum account |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/cosmos_account/{address} | Get an Ethereum account’s Cosmos Address |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/validator_account/{cons_address} | Get an Ethereum account’s from a validator consensus Address |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/balances/{address} | Get the balance of a the EVM denomination for a single EthAccount. |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/storage/{address}/{key} | Get the balance of all coins for a single account |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/codes/{address} | Get the balance of all coins for a single account |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/params | Get the parameters of x/evm module |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/eth_call | Implements the eth_call rpc api |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/estimate_gas | Implements the eth_estimateGas rpc api |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/trace_tx | Implements the debug_traceTransaction rpc api |
GET | /ethermint/evm/v1/trace_block | Implements the debug_traceBlockByNumber and debug_traceBlockByHash rpc api |
Transactions
| Verb | Method | Description |
|---|---|---|
gRPC | ethermint.evm.v1.Msg/EthereumTx | Submit an Ethereum transactions |
POST | /ethermint/evm/v1/ethereum_tx | Submit an Ethereum transactions |