From Jito to Solayer, a deep dive into how SVM is reshaping the Solana scaling game.

Let’s talk about the recent strong performance of the Secondary Market $LAYER@solayer_labs. In particular, why is the InfiniSVM technology roadmap receiving so much attention? What are the characteristics of the hardware-accelerated SVM scaling solutions? And how will the industry landscape of the Solana expansion ecosystem change after hardware acceleration? Next, let me share my observational outlook:

1. Unlike the previous Ethereum-dominated horizontal scaling approach, the Solayer team presents a completely different scaling idea in the infiniSVM white paper: to create a million-level TPS blockchain network by deeply optimizing the SVM through hardware acceleration, essentially through a scaling solution that deeply integrates hardware and software.

Looking back at the entire history of blockchain scalability, the earliest on-chain scalability approach was to achieve it through parameter adjustments (larger blocks, shorter block times), but this approach is prone to touching the blockchain trilemma; the subsequent layer2 scalability approach is a horizontal expansion, with the core aim of offloading transactions through layer2 (state channels, sidechains, Rollup, etc.), which undoubtedly sacrifices some global atomicity; on the other hand, the hardware acceleration route explored by InfiniSVM is a brand new route that upgrades the scalability concept, leveraging specialized hardware to break through performance bottlenecks while maintaining a single global state.

In simple terms: InfiniSVM’s scalability method does not rely solely on optimizing algorithms, but rather on reconstructing the SVM execution environment through microservice architecture and hardware acceleration, delegating some key tasks to dedicated hardware to achieve atomicity and consistency in a global state under high load conditions.

2. Following this line of thought, many friends must be wondering why the SVM execution environment of Solana requires hardware acceleration? From the data provided in the Solayer white paper, it can be seen that the current Solana validator nodes require CPUs above 3.1GHz, 500GB+ high-speed memory, and 2.5TB+ high-throughput NVMe storage. Even with such high configurations, the CPU utilization is only about 30% under high load, and P2P communication is close to the consumer-grade network 1Gbps bandwidth limit.

The question arises, since the CPU is not fully utilized, why do we need stronger hardware? This actually exposes the current performance bottleneck of Solana lies more in aspects beyond CPU computing power, such as: microservices processing architecture, which can isolate different processing links and match more suitable hardware resources; dedicated accelerators, which can assign specific tasks like certain signatures to dedicated hardware, and so on.

You see, InfiniSVM is not just a simple hardware upgrade, but a complete redesign of the execution environment, providing more specialized hardware optimization solutions for each bottleneck. It’s like improving the production efficiency of a workshop; it requires reorganizing the entire production line’s hardware and software, not just a crude increase in the number of workers.

3. So, what characteristics of InfiniSVM’s hardware acceleration solution are worth sharing?

1. Distributed microservices processing architecture. The previous monolithic transaction processing flow of Solana can be decomposed into multiple scalable processing stages such as signature verification, deduplication, scheduling, and storage. In the architecture of InfiniSVM, each stage can be handled independently, avoiding the major issue of “a bottleneck in one stage causing the entire line to wait.”

2. The intelligent trading scheduling system originally required transactions on Solana to be queued for processing even when they belonged to the same account. However, InfiniSVM allows operations to be non-interfering even under the same account, significantly enhancing its parallel processing capabilities. In other words, it further strengthens the ability for refined management.

3. RDMA low-latency communication technology requires at least necessary steps such as packing, delivering, and unpacking for normal communication between nodes, while RDMA can directly transfer data from one node to the memory of another node, achieving a breakthrough in communication technology from milliseconds to microseconds, which can significantly reduce state access conflicts.

4. Distributed intelligent storage network. If a single account were to handle its account data, Solana used to have a limit of 10MB. However, InfiniSVM adopts a distributed cloud storage solution, dispersing data across different nodes, labeled as fast lane, slow lane, etc. This not only breaks through capacity limits but also optimizes data access speed.

4. After explaining the technical upgrade roadmap, it’s likely that many voices questioning “what’s the use” have emerged. Overall, with the support of hardware acceleration, Solana can further enhance its competitive advantage in the layer1 competition. Moreover, compared to the expansion achievements of Ethereum’s layer2, which require application data support in the ecosystem to become apparent, the performance breakthrough of achieving millions of TPS through hardware might only need the integration of a few specific vertical scenarios to directly validate it, making the implementation path a bit shorter.

Let’s take @jito_sol as an example, as Solana’s MEV infrastructure, its niche value in terms of transaction ordering optimization, MEV extraction, validator earnings, etc. If you can’t justify yourself before the Solana MEME craze, Jito’s way of optimizing the transaction execution system has become indispensable after the meme boom of the past year.

In fact, Solayer’s current technical positioning is similar. Its upgrade method, which allows transactions to perform better in the system, is not obvious when solely reflected in financial trading scenarios. However, if we consider the large-scale implementation of PayFi in the future, the performance of TPS will be significantly perceived to ensure that Solana can perfectly support high-throughput and low-latency payment settlement infrastructure functions. Additionally, there are the DePIN ecosystem, as well as complex chain games, AI Agent application scenarios, and so on.

Anyway, looking ahead, defining the value of a technology-based infra project is clearer than just relying on the current perspective of whether it has Utility.