The JavaScript virtual machine that could change Web3
Building on Cosmos in 2022 was a nightmare, so this team pivoted to tackle developer experience
Melisa Parlak/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
Crypto is largely an attention game, with projects in a race to attract new and talented developers as well as users. Cosmos-based Hyperweb is betting big on JavaScript as the key to unlocking mainstream adoption, and released its white paper Wednesday.
Officially introduced at Cosmoverse Dubai and supported by notable figures like Ethan Buchman, Hyperweb aims to create a universal JavaScript virtual machine (HVM) that enables seamless cross-chain smart contract execution.
The idea itself is of course nothing new, and even among JavaScript proponents, chains like Agoric have pioneered the concept of “orchestrating” actions across chains.
Agoric, a Cosmos OG project, developed “hardened JavaScript” which has been used in production, for instance, in MetaMask Snaps.
Unlike Agoric, which also leverages JavaScript with additional abstraction layers, Hyperweb aims to be a pure TypeScript ecosystem. Co-founder Dan Lynch describes the difference by way of analogy to modern vs. medieval spoken language.
“Agoric is kind of like old English — like the Shakespearean ‘where art thou’ — so it’s definitely something that we can decipher, but it’s not the way that we speak [today],” Lynch told Blockworks. “There’s too much nomenclature in Agoric…if you’re a programmer, you have to juggle all these things just to try to do what you’re doing,” he said.
A fragmented Web3 developer experience
Lynch describes the current state of Web3 development as unnecessarily complex and fragmented. Despite his 15 years as a chief technology officer and deep technical expertise, jumping into building on Cosmos in 2022 was a nightmare.
“It was one of the hardest things I ever tried to do,” Lynch said. This experience convinced him that the core issue in blockchain adoption isn’t just infrastructure — it’s the developer experience.
Plus, there just aren’t enough qualified Web3 developers. This dilemma has driven efforts to bring Web2 devs into Web3 from the much larger JavaScript and Python communities.
Hyperweb’s HVM (Hyperweb Virtual Machine) is a JavaScript-native execution environment that allows developers to write smart contracts in TypeScript, doing an end-run around the learning curve of building in Solidity, Rust or Move.
The use of pure TypeScript — and minimal framework overhead — puts an emphasis on intuitive design. The team tested its system with a group of UC Berkeley students, providing only a boilerplate example contract with no documentation:
“Within a week, they had all 10 contracts written… they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, that was so fun and simple!’” Lynch said.
HVM will also be its own sovereign chain. Pitched as the Interchain JavaScript Hub, it will provide interpreters that tailor the same JavaScript code to different blockchain runtimes (EVM, CosmWasm, Solana VM, etc.). This makes it easier to deploy applications across chains without major rewrites, Lynch argues.
The project’s team previously was supported by a grant from the Interchain Foundation, but is on its own following the ICF’s acquisition of Skip to form Interchain Inc. Hyperweb’s forerunner, Cosmology — a tech suite enabling developers to build Web3 applications in the Cosmos ecosystem — announced the closure of a $5 million seed funding round last March — its only VC funding to date.
Tokenomics and incentives
Unlike most proof-of-stake Cosmos chains, Hyperweb is exploring a proof-of-authority (PoA) model, like stablecoin distributor Noble. It uses a smaller set of validators to reduce staking inflation and sell pressure.
“Cosmos chain tokenomics are broken,” Lynch said, positing that the predominant security model of staking inflation “is unsustainable.”
Fees on Hyperchain will be denominated in Noble USDC, and the native token will function instead as a revenue-sharing mechanism to limit reliance on inflationary rewards.
Long term, Hyperweb plans to integrate Ethereum, Solana and other non-Cosmos chains, enabling truly universal smart contract execution. But that’s a ways off. Details on the Hyperweb token are also still under wraps.
For now, if you’re looking to get in early on Hyperweb, the project has already launched a local net that allows developers to start experimenting with JavaScript-based smart contracts. A public testnet is coming soon, with opportunities for builders to be rewarded for their contributions — potentially in a way similar to Tea Protocol’s retrospective incentives for GitHub activity.
The vision for Hyperweb is ambitious — a unified, developer-friendly blockchain ecosystem that eliminates the siloes between old and new.
As Lynch puts it: “Let’s end the war between Web2 and Web3. It’s all the web.”
With millions of users of Hyperweb’s developer tooling and contributions coming from giants like Google, Binance and Supabase, Hyperweb might just be the key to breaking the developer logjam.
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