Ethereum's technical standards are becoming the de facto blueprint for blockchain development across the industry. On July 2, 2026, Ontology, a Layer 1 blockchain focused on decentralized identity and data, announced a four-part upgrade to its Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) that brings its code in line with Ethereum's Shanghai and Cancun network upgrades. The move reflects a broader pattern: blockchains are adopting Ethereum's opcodes, or low-level instructions, to reduce friction for developers and improve network efficiency.

Ontology's upgrade adds four specific Ethereum opcodes that Ethereum introduced in recent years. These technical changes might sound obscure, but they have real practical effects on how blockchain networks operate and how developers build on them.

What Are Opcodes and Why Do They Matter?

Opcodes are the basic instructions that virtual machines execute when running smart contracts, the self-executing programs that power decentralized applications. When Ethereum updates its opcodes, it's essentially adding new tools to the toolbox that developers use to write and deploy code. Other blockchains that adopt the same opcodes can run Ethereum code more easily, without requiring special translation or workarounds.

Ontology's upgrade introduces the following opcodes:

• PUSH0 (EIP-3855): Places the value zero onto the stack, reducing smart contract size and lowering the gas cost, or transaction fee, of almost every transaction on the network.
• BASEFEE (EIP-3198): Allows a smart contract to read the network's current base fee directly on-chain without needing an external data source.
• MCOPY (EIP-5656): Copies memory in a single step, speeding up data-heavy operations such as encoding and cryptography.
• Transient storage, TSTORE and TLOAD (EIP-1153): Provides low-cost storage that lasts for a single transaction, well suited to temporary state such as reentrancy protection against certain types of smart contract attacks.

Together, these changes bring Ontology's EVM in line with opcodes introduced in Ethereum's Shanghai and Cancun upgrades, so the latest output from compilers such as Solidity and Vyper runs without special handling. Compilers are tools that convert human-readable code into machine-executable instructions.

Why Are Blockchains Standardizing on Ethereum's Code?

The adoption of Ethereum's opcodes by other blockchains reflects a practical reality: Ethereum has become the reference standard for smart contract development. Developers are most familiar with Ethereum's tools and standards, and many existing smart contracts are written in Solidity, the most popular Ethereum programming language. When a blockchain adopts Ethereum's opcodes, it makes it easier for developers to port existing Ethereum contracts to that chain without rewriting code or dealing with compatibility issues.

This standardization also reduces transaction costs and improves network efficiency. The PUSH0 opcode, for example, lowers gas costs across the board by reducing contract size. For users, lower gas costs mean cheaper transactions. For developers, it means their applications can operate more efficiently.

Ontology's move is part of a larger ecosystem strategy. The blockchain is positioning itself as a platform for decentralized identity and verified human data, and it needs a fast, efficient network underneath to support that mission. By adopting Ethereum's latest opcodes, Ontology ensures that developers building identity and data applications on its network have access to the same tools and optimizations they would use on Ethereum itself.

How to Understand Blockchain Standardization and Its Benefits

• Reduced Developer Friction: When blockchains adopt the same opcodes and standards as Ethereum, developers can reuse code, tools, and knowledge across multiple chains, reducing the time and cost of building new applications.
• Lower Transaction Costs: Opcodes like PUSH0 and MCOPY reduce the computational overhead of executing smart contracts, which directly translates to lower gas fees for users and more efficient network operation.
• Broader Ecosystem Compatibility: Standardization on Ethereum's EVM makes it easier for wallets, exchanges, and other infrastructure providers to support multiple blockchains without building entirely separate systems for each chain.
• Faster Innovation Cycles: When blockchains adopt Ethereum's upgrades, they benefit from the research and testing that Ethereum's core developers have already completed, allowing them to implement improvements more quickly and safely.

Ontology's eight-year history demonstrates the value of long-term infrastructure building. The blockchain has processed more than 20 million transactions, maintains approximately 900 active nodes, and has issued 1.65 million decentralized identities through its ONT ID system. The network's ONTO Wallet, which serves more than 2 million users across 70 or more blockchains and 170 or more countries, is evolving into a data wallet for the artificial intelligence economy.

"For eight years we have built the infrastructure for trusted identity and user-owned data. The next eight are about putting it to work for the defining technology of our time," said Li Jun, Founder of Ontology. "AI runs on data, and it increasingly needs data that is high-quality, consented, and provably human. Ontology and ONTO Wallet let people own that data and decide how it is used, turning verified human data into the foundation of a fairer AI economy."

Li Jun, Founder of Ontology

The broader implication is that Ethereum's technical standards are becoming the lingua franca of blockchain development. As more networks adopt Ethereum's opcodes and EVM compatibility, the ecosystem becomes more interconnected and efficient. Developers can build once and deploy across multiple chains, users benefit from lower costs and faster transactions, and the entire industry moves toward greater interoperability.

This trend also reflects the maturation of blockchain infrastructure. Rather than each network inventing its own standards from scratch, the industry is converging on proven solutions. Ethereum's upgrades have been tested extensively by its large developer community and billions of dollars in transaction volume, making them a safe choice for other blockchains to adopt.