Sei Network has positioned itself as a high-performance Layer-1 blockchain designed for speed, scalability, and seamless user experiences. In Web3, execution speed is critical, especially as more decentralized applications (dApps) migrate or expand into the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) ecosystem.
As the demand for faster, more scalable, and EVM-compatible infrastructures grows, Sei answers with its most ambitious upgrade yet: Giga.
In this article, we’ll explore the Giga Upgrade, the core technical innovations powering this leap in performance, and what it means for developers, users, and the broader EVM ecosystem. From parallel execution to multi-proposer consensus, you’ll discover how Sei sets a new standard for scalable, EVM-compatible blockchains.
What is Giga?
Giga is the next evolution of the Sei blockchain focused on maximizing performance and developer flexibility. At its core, Giga introduces 50x faster execution through architectural enhancements that enable highly parallelized transaction processing.
While maintaining full EVM compatibility, Giga empowers developers to deploy EVM smart contracts and WASM-native applications on the same chain, without compromising on throughput or latency.
Giga’s Key Innovations
Four key technical breakthroughs power the Giga upgrade:
1. Parallel Execution with Optimistic Concurrency
Giga introduces automatic parallelization at the execution layer. Unlike traditional blockchains that process transactions sequentially, Sei analyzes transaction dependencies in real time and executes non-conflicting transactions in parallel. This leads to massive throughput gains — up to 50x faster than the previous architecture.
2. SeiDB: High-Speed State Access
SeiDB is a purpose-built storage layer that minimizes read/write overhead, supports high-volume parallel access, and ensures fast state synchronization. This component is essential for achieving consistent and reliable performance at scale, especially for compute-intensive dApps.
3. Autobahn: Multi-Proposer Consensus
Autobahn allows multiple validators to propose blocks simultaneously within a round. This increases block inclusion rates, reduces time to finality, and strengthens consensus robustness. It’s a paradigm shift from the traditional single-proposer models used in most proof-of-stake systems.
4. EVM Compatibility Without Compromise
Sei now supports native EVM smart contracts via the Giga upgrade, enabling developers to deploy existing Ethereum-based dApps with minimal changes. Unlike other L1s, Sei does not sacrifice performance for compatibility—EVM contracts benefit from Sei’s optimized execution pipeline out of the box.
Together, these innovations unlock a new performance ceiling for EVM-compatible blockchains.
Deeper Dive: Sei Giga by the Numbers
The newly published Sei Giga Whitepaper offers deeper insights into the system architecture, design rationale, and performance benchmarks behind this upgrade.
Some standout metrics and innovations include:
- Throughput exceeding 5 gigagas per block, enabling theoretical performance of over 200,000 transactions per second.
- Sub-400ms finality, supporting real-time user interactions and low-latency dApp execution.
- Autobahn consensus: A multi-proposer model that parallelizes block proposals and increases throughput without compromising validator fairness or liveness.
- Asynchronous state commitment: Decoupling state execution from consensus to reduce bottlenecks and improve scalability.
- Custom execution client: Built independently from Ethereum clients like geth or reth, the new Sei engine is optimized from the ground up for performance in a parallel execution environment.
This not only reinforces Sei’s technical ambition but also demonstrates that high EVM compatibility doesn’t have to come at the cost of throughput or developer experience.
Why Giga Matters for the EVM Ecosystem
Giga transforms Sei into one of the most performant execution environments available to EVM developers and unlocks:
- Better UX: Faster transaction finality, lower latency, and smoother interactions for end users.
- Scalability for dApps: More compute and storage throughput means more complex, feature-rich applications can run without congestion.
- Cost Efficiency: Faster execution and efficient state handling reduce network overhead and transaction costs.
This means developers can build on Sei using familiar EVM frameworks (e.g., Solidity, Hardhat) while gaining access to the performance typically reserved for non-EVM environments.
Developer Opportunities
Giga creates a fertile ground for innovation:
- Hybrid dApps that combine EVM and native modules
- GameFi and DeFi applications requiring real-time responsiveness
- Infrastructure projects that benefit from deterministic, high-speed execution
- Cross-chain apps leveraging Sei as a fast execution hub in a multi-chain ecosystem
With Giga, Sei aims to be the most performant and developer-friendly EVM-compatible Layer 1.
Conclusion
The Sei Giga Upgrade marks a major milestone — not only for Sei, but for the broader Web3 and EVM ecosystem. By delivering 50x faster execution, parallel processing, Autobahn consensus, and full EVM compatibility, Sei redefines what developers and users can expect from modern blockchains.
As the industry continues to push the boundaries of scalability and performance, Sei emerges as a pioneer, laying the technical groundwork for the next generation of high-throughput, EVM-based applications.
Sei is no longer just fast — it’s Giga-fast, and it’s built for the future.
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