Web3 domain service ENS has announced the launch of the EVM gateway. The EVM gateway is an open-source repository that includes a general CCIP-Read gateway framework and Solidity library, allowing L1 smart contracts to efficiently and securely retrieve and verify states from other EVM chains (L2). Developers can operate their own gateway or use existing gateways. Additionally, changing the target (the L2 to be read) is as simple as exchanging the validator contract address. Currently, the gateway is available on OP Goerli and will soon be launched on the OP mainnet.

The Ethereum virtual machine Neon EVM on Solana has announced plans to become the first EVM to support multi-token gas payments. Andrey Falaleev, Chief Technology Officer of Neon, stated that users will be able to make payments using supported tokens such as SPL, USDC, and SOL. This feature is expected to be launched by the end of this year.

On November 1st, decentralized smart contract platform Waterfall Network announced the completion of a $2 million Pre-A round of financing, led by ByteTrade Lab. The company plans to use this new funding to promote the release of its mainnet in the first quarter of 2024. <br>The EVM-compatible decentralized smart contract network currently being built by Waterfall Network allows any device (including low-cost laptops and mobile phones) to run validator nodes, while also providing users with more access and full control over their data, promoting true on-chain decentralized governance.

On October 27th, Neo founder Da Hongfei announced at the Neo Asia-Pacific Hackathon Hong Kong Finals that Neo is creating a sidechain that can resist Miner Extractable Value (MEV) attacks and is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). The new sidechain will inherit the NeoN3 economic model and dBFT consensus mechanism, while also having the feature of resisting malicious MEV attacks. The sidechain is currently under development and is expected to be released by the end of 2023.

LayerZero Labs announced that LayerZero is now live on TomoChain. TomoChain is an L1 blockchain compatible with EVM. Developers can now integrate their applications with TomoChain and over 40 other blockchains that have LayerZero nodes.

Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz stated that the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) will not maintain its 95% market dominance in the long term. Mumtaz believes that in any free market technology competition, leaders do not maintain their overall market advantage for long periods of time. Mumtaz said, "I have never seen a technology that occupies 95% of the market share, and people are betting that it will continue to grow (relative to market share) in the next five to ten years, even Windows did not maintain this dominant position for a long time." Mumtaz believes that the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) and MoveVM are "objectively" better technologies than EVM, and they are also distributed through the modular theory of blockchain.

Ronin Network, a game-specific EVM blockchain, announced the launch of the Lucas (v2.6.2) upgrade and Shillin hard fork on the Ronin mainnet. It is reported that this Lucas version implements Optimistic Fast Finality (REP-0003) and REP-0002 multiple protocol improvements. Among them, REP-0003 proposes a new fast finality mechanism aimed at improving the speed of transaction confirmation on Ronin.&nbsp;

ZippyChain is a sharding-based parallel EVM PoS blockchain project. It aims to address some of the challenges faced by traditional blockchain technology, such as low transaction speeds and high gas charges.

According to official news: Evmos, the Cosmos ecological EVM compatible chain, will launch Evmos 2.0 on August 2. Evmos 2.0 is not just a rebrand, but a major reset. Updates in this release include enabling StakeFi and IBC composability through Evmos EVM extensions, Evmos v2 token economics, creating value alignment with future Evmos SDK chains through software licensing.

Reef has launched a $10 million Accelerator Program for Web3 projects based in the Middle East. The program, managed by Reef Labs, aims to support, incubate, and invest in promising Middle East-based Web3 developers, teams, and projects building on the Reef Chain. This initiative seeks to drive Reef’s vision for growth, making it the de-facto blockchain in the MENA region.