Over the past year, B-Harvest and other contributors have been diligently working to enhance Canto’s performance. Faster transactions and stability improve user/developer experience, leading to wider adoption.

The performance upgrades introduced by Cyclone Stack will position Canto as a leading L1 blockchain with a large and growing community.

Performance upgrades lead to:

Lower Gas Costs: A higher TPS rate means reduced gas fees for each transaction, leading to a more affordable cost structure for users.

Enhanced User Experience: Faster transaction processing and lower costs make for a seamless and enjoyable user experience, which is critical for the adoption of various DeFi applications on Canto.

The Cyclone EVM Stack

The Cyclone EVM stack, which aims to significantly boost performance, was introduced earlier this year after extensive research and development.

Here's a closer look at the major upgrades and their current status:

• Callisto Upgrade: Faster Block Time with ABCI 2.0

The Cosmos SDK of Canto Chain has been upgraded to v0.50, featuring the new ABCI 2.0 interface and Optimistic Block Execution (OBE). This upgrade reduces block time to less than 2 seconds. Despite the shorter block time, we expect a more stable operation with fewer validator misses.

• Elara Upgrade: Parallel Execution for Higher Throughput

The Elara upgrade introduces Optimistic Parallel Execution, through the Cyclone EVM. By incorporating Block-STM, an in-memory smart contract parallel execution engine, Canto can process transactions in parallel without requiring prior knowledge of transaction dependencies. This innovation is expected to enable sub-second block times and significantly higher TPS.

• Kallichore Upgrade: Eliminating Storage Bottlenecks

The Kallichore upgrade addresses storage and state management issues in the Cosmos SDK. By integrating MemIAVL, an in-memory implementation of the IAVL tree, we aim to eliminate unnecessary disk IO operations, thus boosting performance. Initial benchmarks using a proxy for MemIAVL have shown that this upgrade can dramatically improve performance, with potential block times of just 0.3 seconds.

Performance Benchmarking Results

Our rigorous performance benchmarking has yielded impressive results:

With the Cyclone Stack, we have achieved a peak TPS of approximately 5000, demonstrating that these upgrades can significantly enhance Canto's performance.

Next Steps

We are now moving towards production-level development. The Callisto upgrade is scheduled for release in Q2 2024, with the Elara and Kallichore upgrades expected to follow in Q3 2024. This series of upgrades represents a significant milestone for Canto, marking a major step forward in our journey to provide a high-performance blockchain platform ready for mass adoption.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to push the boundaries of performance with the Cyclone Stack!