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Cadena announced at ETHCC in Cannes that its long-running chain web EVM test is live. Unlike the Ethereum L2, which promises scaling via rollup, ChainWeb EVM runs on Kadena’s braided workplace architecture, designed to scale horizontally without fragmentation from discrete sequencers or bridges.
The result is “Seamless EVM compatibility without compromising decentralization or throughput,” according to Kadena co-founder and CEO Stuart Popejoy.
“It’s a vanilla EVM with Pectra, so today we can roll out into chains,” Popejoy told the Cannes audience at ETHCC today.
ChainWeb EVM first runs five parallel EVM chains on the testnet, and Cadena architecture maintains sub-cent trading fees while allowing this number to grow with demand. As explained by Popejoy:
“Every time you add a chain, the throughput increases linearly with that amount,” says Popejoy. “When I went to chains from 10 to 20, for example, the throughput was doubled.”
Kadena’s existing chain runs Pact, the network’s native smart contract language designed to prioritize security, auditability and formal verification. Unlike robustness (Turing is completely complex and can represent anything at the expense of complexity), PACT intentionally makes Turing incomplete.
But like so many L1s and previous L1s that employ EVM, the network effects of Ethereum virtual machines – especially when it comes to tools and wallets, can be difficult to confuse. Just today there was an additional EVM launch from heavyweight Ripple and Ton using the Cosmos Stack.
Kadena is selling its features not a bug, but rather its roots as a feature.
“Proof of work remains the safest and most decentralized consensus technology,” Popejoy said, which is being debated. “It eliminates the need for sequencers…and it’s a much safer architecture.”
But the real question is whether developers and users will come. Kadena knows that onboarding solidity developers need to overcome significant UX complexities across multiple chains. Asked about their plans to abstract this complexity, Popeyoi said:
“Since its launch in 2020, Kadena’s Multichain Architecture has enabled DAPP to scale linearly across demand. With the upcoming launch of ChainWeb EVM, we bring this technology to Solidity Developers.
To bootstrap the ecosystem, Cadena lists substantial money. A $50 million grant program, half of which was allocated for robustness-based DAPP, AI integration, and half of the real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.
On the RWA side, Kadena is trying to distinguish it from a compliance-first approach, according to co-founder Annelise Osborne.
“Early adopters such as MPACT Capital and CurveBlock chose Kadenas RWA standard to solve some of the key challenges faced by institutions. They close in-facility grade security at trading speeds or affordable prices without sacrificing regulatory compliance through the OnChainID framework, operational efficiency through programmable dividend distributions (with compliance updates), and trading speeds.
Despite grants and ambitious claims, Cadena’s challenge is clear. Once those incentives are exhausted, can we attract enough developers and users to maintain actual activity?
“The goal isn’t just to become another EVM option,” Popejoy told BlockWorks. Rather, he told “where Defi developers go when expensive developers get tired are slow deals, complicated bridging.”