# Stellar joins Bytecode Alliance to help develop EVM alternative Wasm

By [Masih](https://paragraph.com/@4545f) · 2023-08-22

---

Stellar joined the industry group developing Wasm, an alternative computation engine for running smart contracts.

The Stellar Development Foundation has joined the Bytecode Alliance, an industry group promoting the development of WebAssembly (Wasm), according to an Aug. 21 announcement. Wasm is a competitor to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) used by the Ethereum ecosystem. It is also used in non-blockchain, browser-based applications.

EVM is a virtual machine or computation engine used to execute smart contracts. It is used by most blockchain networks, including Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Avalanche and many others. But a few networks use Wasm instead, including Polkadot, MultiversX (formerly Elrond) and Internet Computer.

Stellar began as a payments network in 2014. But in 2022, it [implemented](https://www.stellar.org/blog/smart-contracts-on-stellar-why-now) smart contracts to provide more functionality to the network. In April 2022, Stellar developers [chose](https://stellar.org/blog/project-jump-cannon-choosing-wasm) Wasm as their computation engine. They argued that despite the popularity of EVM, its “storage and execution models are expensive and challenging to parallelize,” which “gets in the way of scalability,” making transactions more expensive.

**_Related:_** [**_Stellar dips into treasury to buy minority stake in MoneyGram_**](https://cointelegraph.com/news/stellar-minority-investor-in-moneygramke%20in%20MoneyGram)

Stellar also argued that Wasm was perfect for “extremely adversarial” environments like blockchains, as it was originally developed for browser applications. This was another reason the team chose Wasm over EVM.

But much of the development work for Wasm is produced by the Bytecode Alliance, a nonprofit organization made up of internet companies such as Amazon, Cisco, Intel, Microsoft and others. When Stellar chose Wasm as its computation engine, Internet Computer developer Dfinity was the only member of the alliance representing a blockchain network.

[https://cointelegraph.com/news/stellar-joins-bytecode-alliance-help-develop-evm-alternative-wasm](https://cointelegraph.com/news/stellar-joins-bytecode-alliance-help-develop-evm-alternative-wasm)

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/9b3bc94e85db8e6dd138f3be3bd61dad15293a3cda3f3b5c7a85dd9b57cd361a.png)

---

*Originally published on [Masih](https://paragraph.com/@4545f/stellar-joins-bytecode-alliance-to-help-develop-evm-alternative-wasm)*
