July 28, 2026 — According to Gate market data, Solana (SOL) is priced at $73.34, down 4.08% over the past 24 hours and 6.09% over the past 7 days, with year-to-date performance remaining under pressure. Meanwhile, SOON (SoonVerse) is trading at $0.23954, up 21.96% in the last 24 hours, 28.45% over 7 days, and 21.78% over 30 days. This contrast highlights a key trend currently shaping the crypto industry—the logic of blockchain competition is shifting from "single public chain" to "execution environment ecosystems."
In previous cycles, the industry focused on "which chain is faster and cheaper." Ethereum, Solana, Aptos, Sui, and other public chains competed based on metrics like TPS, gas fees, and node count. However, as modular blockchain architectures mature, a new competitive narrative is emerging: execution environments are decoupling from base public chains and becoming independently deployable, cross-chain reusable infrastructure modules.
A prime example of this transformation is the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) being "liberated" from the Solana mainnet and deployed as SVM Rollups across ecosystems like Ethereum and BNB Chain. SOON Network is a pioneer on this path. This article explores the evolution of execution environment competition and analyzes the technical value and market outlook for SVM Rollups.
Evolution of Competition: From Public Chains to Execution Environments
To understand the significance of SVM Rollups, it’s essential to grasp how blockchain competition has evolved.
Phase One (2015–2020): The Public Chain Wars. Competition centered on "who is the superior base public chain." Ethereum established dominance through smart contracts and first-mover advantage, while EOS, Tron, Cardano, and others challenged on performance and governance. Key metrics included TPS, node decentralization, and developer ecosystem size.
Phase Two (2021–2024): Layer 2 and Modularization. Ethereum congestion sparked a boom in Rollup solutions. Projects like Arbitrum, Optimism, and zkSync began separating execution from Layer 1, and the modular blockchain narrative took shape—data availability (DA), settlement, and execution layers started to decouple.
Phase Three (2025–present): Execution Environment Competition. As modular architectures become industry consensus, the focus shifts to "who drives the execution layer." EVM is no longer the only option—SVM, MoveVM, WASM, and others are now vying for dominance. As industry observers note, "Blockchain wars have shifted from narrative battles to an execution environment revolution."
At its core, this evolution means that as base chain infrastructure matures and modular toolchains standardize, the performance, developer experience, and ecosystem compatibility of execution environments become crucial variables for upper-layer application quality.
The Current Landscape and Differences Among Three Major Execution Environments
Today, Web3 smart contract execution environments are dominated by three camps: EVM, SVM, and Move.
EVM Ecosystem is the largest and most compatible execution environment. Ethereum and its Layer 2s (Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, etc.) are all built around EVM, with Solidity and ERC standards as industry norms. According to Electric Capital’s developer report, Ethereum still boasts the largest developer base. EVM’s strengths lie in network effects and a mature toolchain, but its sequential execution model imposes throughput limits—Ethereum mainnet TPS is roughly 15–30, and even the most advanced EVM Layer 2s max out around 2,000 TPS.
SVM Ecosystem is represented by the Solana Virtual Machine, distinguished by its parallel execution capabilities. SVM leverages the Sealevel parallel execution model, processing multiple non-conflicting transactions simultaneously. As of July 2026, Solana’s network throughput reached 1,635 TPS, with peak non-vote TPS averaging between 1,600 and 3,800, and total TPS surging above 6,000. The Alpenglow upgrade further reduced finality times to 100–150 milliseconds. Notably, in 2024, Solana became the first ecosystem to attract more new developers than Ethereum—a trend not seen since 2016.
Move Ecosystem is led by Aptos and Sui, using the Move programming language. Its core innovations include a resource-oriented programming model and parallel execution. Move offers unique advantages in asset security and formal verification, but its ecosystem and developer base remain significantly smaller than EVM and SVM.
From a performance standpoint, SVM and Move outpace EVM in throughput, but EVM holds a massive advantage in ecosystem size and developer inertia. The critical question is whether SVM and Move can leverage modular architectures like Rollups to "port" their performance advantages into EVM-dominated ecosystems.
SVM Rollups: Modularizing High-Performance Execution Environments
The core logic of SVM Rollups is to decouple Solana’s parallel execution capabilities from the mainnet and deploy them as independent execution layers atop other Layer 1 blockchains (such as Ethereum, BNB Chain, Bitcoin, etc.).
This technical pathway became feasible with the release of the SVM API by the Anza team in July 2024. The API allows developers to decouple SVM from the validator client (Agave), enabling independent optimization of the execution environment without affecting the consensus layer. This marks a pivotal shift from "Solana-exclusive" to "modular and universal."
SVM Rollups deliver value on three fronts:
Performance Migration. SVM’s parallel execution model offers significant advantages for processing large volumes of independent transactions. For example, SOON Network, which integrated the Firedancer client early, achieved 80,000 TPS in Devnet testing—about 40 times higher than any EVM Layer 2. Firedancer, Jump Crypto’s reimplementation of the Solana validator client, boosts signature verification speed by 12x and increases account update throughput from 15,000 to 220,000 per second.
Ecosystem Compatibility. SVM Rollups don’t require developers to abandon their existing tools. SOON Stack, for instance, combines OP Stack with decoupled SVM, allowing developers to deploy SVM Rollups on Ethereum, BNB Chain, and other Layer 1s while maintaining compatibility with existing infrastructure.
Modular Flexibility. Decoupling SVM separates the Transaction Processing Unit (TPU) from Solana’s consensus layer. Rollup nodes can directly control the TPU without incurring the overhead of Solana’s native consensus. This design enables the execution layer to scale and optimize independently of the underlying chain.
SOON Network: Pioneer of SVM Rollup Implementation
SOON (Solana Optimistic Network) is the first protocol to modularize SVM and deploy it across multiple chains. Its core architecture consists of three components:
SOON Mainnet is a general-purpose SVM Layer 2 that settles on Ethereum, serving as the flagship SVM Rollup implementation. SOON Alpha mainnet launched in January 2026. SOON Mainnet now hosts over 20 ecosystem projects, including native bridges to Ethereum and cross-chain connections with Solana and TON.
SOON Stack is a modular Rollup framework combining OP Stack with decoupled SVM, supporting SVM Rollup deployment on any Layer 1 (Ethereum, Bitcoin, Cosmos, etc.). SOON Stack aims to lower the barrier for SVM Rollup deployment, allowing developers to focus on application development.
InterSOON is a cross-chain messaging protocol enabling seamless communication between SOON chains and mainstream Layer 1s via Hyperlane.
From a market perspective, SOON has a total supply of 1 billion tokens, with a circulating market cap of approximately $47.0695 million and 24-hour trading volume of $2.0507 million as of July 28, 2026. SOON’s all-time high was $5.5368 (November 2025), and its low was $0.05 (May 2025). The current price remains far below its peak, but the recent 7-day gain of 28.45% signals renewed interest in the SVM Rollup narrative.
SOON’s unique positioning lies in the fact that it’s not a Solana Layer 2, but an infrastructure layer that "brings SVM to all Layer 1s." This strategy differentiates it from Eclipse (an SVM-based Ethereum Layer 2)—Eclipse focuses on SVM deployment within the Ethereum ecosystem, while SOON aims to become a unified SVM execution layer across multiple chains.
Challenges and Uncertainties
While SVM Rollup’s technical feasibility has been proven in test environments, large-scale commercial adoption faces several hurdles.
Ecosystem Bootstrapping. EVM has amassed a vast developer toolchain, third-party libraries, and talent over years. SVM uses Rust, which offers superior performance but presents a learning curve for Solidity developers. Whether SOON can attract enough developers to build on SVM Rollups is a key variable for its long-term value.
Liquidity Fragmentation. Multi-chain deployment means liquidity is spread across different Rollup instances. InterSOON aims to solve this via cross-chain messaging, but the efficiency of liquidity aggregation remains to be proven.
Intensifying Competition. SOON isn’t alone in the SVM Rollup space. Projects like Solayer and Sonic are also exploring modular SVM deployment. Additionally, the EVM ecosystem is working on parallel EVM solutions (such as Monad and Sei) to boost execution performance, which could erode SVM’s advantage.
Economic Model Sustainability. SOON uses a 3% annual inflation rate as staking rewards. Whether inflation incentives can effectively sustain network security and node participation at current price levels remains to be seen.
Conclusion
The blockchain industry is undergoing a profound paradigm shift from "chain competition" to "execution environment competition." EVM dominates through ecosystem scale, SVM differentiates with parallel performance, and Move charts a new course with its security model—the competitive landscape among the three execution environments is far from settled.
SVM Rollups fundamentally challenge the assumption that "high-performance execution must be tied to high-performance public chains." SOON Network, by decoupling SVM, building SOON Stack, and deploying multi-chain Rollups, is liberating Solana’s execution capabilities from a single chain and transforming them into a cross-chain, reusable infrastructure module.
Of course, proving technical feasibility is only the first step. Whether SVM Rollups can gain traction in the EVM-dominated market depends on ecosystem development, liquidity aggregation, and real-world application adoption. The second half of 2026 through 2027 will be a critical window for SVM Rollups to move from technical validation to commercial success.
FAQ
Q1: How does SVM Rollup differ from traditional EVM Rollups?
SVM Rollup uses Solana’s parallel execution model (Sealevel), allowing simultaneous processing of multiple non-conflicting transactions. EVM Rollups use sequential execution, processing transactions one at a time. This gives SVM Rollup a significant throughput advantage—SOON achieved 80,000 TPS in testing, about 40 times current EVM Layer 2s.
Q2: What is the relationship between SOON Network and Solana?
SOON is not a Solana Layer 2. It’s a protocol that modularizes the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) and deploys it across multiple chains. By decoupling SVM, SOON brings Solana’s execution capabilities to Ethereum, BNB Chain, Bitcoin, and other Layer 1s, enabling these ecosystems to benefit from SVM’s parallel processing.
Q3: What does SOON Stack do?
SOON Stack is a modular Rollup framework combining OP Stack with decoupled SVM. Developers can use SOON Stack to quickly deploy SVM Rollups on any Layer 1 (Ethereum, Bitcoin, Cosmos, etc.) without building execution layer infrastructure from scratch.
Q4: What are the main risks facing SVM Rollups?
Key risks include ecosystem bootstrapping challenges (Rust’s learning curve for Solidity developers), liquidity fragmentation from multi-chain deployment, competitive pressure from parallel EVM projects, and the sustainability of the token economic model in a low-price environment.
Q5: How should investors view SOON’s recent market performance?
As of July 28, 2026, SOON is priced at $0.23954, up 28.45% over the past 7 days and 21.78% over the past 30 days. The recent price rise is tied to renewed interest in the SVM Rollup narrative and technical progress (Alpha mainnet launch, Firedancer integration testing). However, the current price remains well below the all-time high of $5.5368, and market sentiment is neutral. Investors should monitor ecosystem development and changes in the competitive landscape.
