Metis Hyperion: A New Hope to Ignite the Ethereum AI Vision?

1. Overview of Metis Hyperion

Metis is an important member of the Ethereum L2 ecosystem, based on Optimistic Rollup technology. It initially launched the Andromeda mainnet, which is unique in that it employs a decentralized sequencer, giving transaction ordering rights to community participants. In March 2025, Metis announced a dual-chain strategy: building on the existing general-purpose chain Andromeda, it will launch the high-performance Hyperion chain. Andromeda is positioned as a secure and reliable general-purpose L2, while Hyperion focuses on high-frequency, high-throughput, and AI-driven application scenarios.

The Hyperion architecture is built on top of the Metis SDK, with the core being the brand new MetisVM virtual machine. MetisVM is not only compatible with EVM but also supports AI-optimized instructions, aiming to enhance scalability and decentralization while significantly improving transaction efficiency. Hyperion is committed to becoming a "high-performance, AI-native" L2 network, capable of achieving near millisecond transaction confirmations and ultra-high transaction throughput, creating possibilities for applications such as on-chain LLM inference and decentralized AI agents.

The development roadmap of Metis mainly includes two directions: first, continuously improving the core L2 infrastructure, such as introducing real-time data availability migration and fraud proof mechanisms in the Andromeda upgrade in May 2025, making it the industry's first "truly decentralized" Layer 2; second, promoting modularity and multi-chain interoperability, reducing the development threshold through the Metis SDK, and facilitating the development of a multi-chain ecosystem. The launch of Hyperion has, to some extent, reshaped the value logic of the METIS token, transforming Metis from a single L2 platform into a comprehensive platform of "multi-chain infrastructure + AI dedicated chain."

2. On-chain LLM? The Implementation Logic of Metis

2.1 AI ecosystem closed-loop three-piece set: SDK, Hyperion, LazAI

Hyperion, as a type of Optimistic Rollup, inherits the security model of the Metis and Optimism series, while innovating in parallel computing, data availability, and decentralization. It is primarily optimized for AI and high-frequency application scenarios. Metis promotes ecological construction through the three major systems of Metis SDK, Hyperion, and LazAI.

• Parallel Execution Engine: Hyperion introduces a parallel execution technology similar to Block-STM, allowing independent transactions within the same block to run simultaneously, significantly enhancing throughput.

• Decentralized Sorter: The trading sorting rights of Hyperion are collectively undertaken by a multi-node network, utilizing mechanisms such as rotating leaders and cryptographic memory pools, combined with the proposer-builder separation (PBS) to prevent front-running and centralized intervention.

• Data Availability: The Hyperion plan utilizes Ethereum's new features and external DA services to ensure data availability. With the advancement of EIP-4844, Hyperion and Andromeda will directly publish transaction data to L1 through blob transactions.

• Fraud proof mechanism: Hyperion adopts an optimistic model but has upgraded the fraud proof. It introduces an interactive error correction mechanism that allows "observers" to challenge new blocks within a certain time frame.

In terms of AI-native infrastructure, the Metis SDK allows users to independently build L2 or L3 blockchains, integrating an upgraded EVM (MetisVM) and parallel processing capabilities, along with a decentralized sorting mechanism. Hyperion is a high-performance AI-specific Layer2 built on this SDK. MetisVM improves transaction efficiency by approximately 30% through dynamic optimization of opcodes and parallel execution mechanisms. MetisDB utilizes memory-mapped Merkle trees and concurrency control to achieve nanosecond-level state access. The combination of these technologies enables Hyperion to execute AI inference tasks such as large language models (LLM) directly on-chain.

In the AI narrative project incubation aspect, Metis actively promotes the development of the LazAI protocol. LazAI is an open network focused on "trustworthy AI data assets," aimed at addressing the transparency and consistency issues of data used in AI. Based on the LazAI protocol, Metis has also launched the Alith framework, which is a development tool tailored for AI agents on the blockchain. Developers can quickly develop and deploy AI Agents on Metis using the Alith SDK.

2.2 Compared to other L2s, what advantages does Hyperion provide for Metis?

Hyperion, although still based on Optimistic Rollup, has built differentiated competitiveness through forward-looking technologies and strategic layout: technologies like Hyperion meet the performance needs of AI applications, the dual-chain and SDK model caters to both general and specialized needs, and decentralized ordering enhances ecosystem trust. The differentiated competition with other L2s is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

• High-performance execution layer: Hyperion is an AI-oriented high-performance Layer2 that achieves near real-time settlement and Web2-level response speed through Optimistic Rollup, parallel execution, and distributed sorting technologies. MetisVM is tailored for high-frequency trading and AI tasks, featuring dynamic opcode optimization, parallel execution, and caching mechanisms.

• Dual Chain Strategy: Metis retains the Andromeda chain as a general-purpose L2, while launching Hyperion specifically to serve AI scenarios. This "dual network" architecture balances versatility and specialization.

• Metis SDK and Developer Ecosystem: Metis SDK is a modular toolkit for developers that integrates blueprints, build tools, and standard interfaces, facilitating the rapid construction of custom execution layers or applications.

• Decentralized Sorter: Metis has successfully launched the industry's first fully decentralized sorter, transferring transaction sorting rights to community nodes and a staking mechanism. By rotating consensus nodes and utilizing incentive tokens for governance, it achieves fault tolerance and censorship resistance.

3. If Ethereum focuses on L1, how will Metis respond?

3.1 If the main chain doesn't distribute rewards, Metis will build its own candy factory.

Assuming that Ethereum focuses on the development of its own L1 rather than continuing to directly expand L2, Metis's strategy is to adopt a modular and multi-chain approach.

Metis's dual-chain architecture and MetisSDK provide the capability to build multiple dedicated chains. The launch of Hyperion marks Metis's transformation from a "single L2" to a "modular multi-chain infrastructure." With MetisSDK, any team can quickly create customized blockchains, configuring parallel execution consensus, EVM-compatible layers, AI-optimized VMs, on-chain storage, and other components. This means that Metis not only operates two chains but can also support more "industry-specific chains."

Metis places great importance on cross-chain interoperability and collaborative ecosystems, planning to introduce cross-chain bridging and data/computing aggregation mechanisms. Metis will integrate Chainlink CCIP to enable the free flow of assets and smart contracts between Metis and other public chains. The Hyperion architecture emphasizes "shared bridges + cross-chain interconnection" and proposes "decentralized data and computing aggregation," connecting AI applications with various data networks and computing resources.

The community is not only users but also direct participants and beneficiaries of the network operation. By opening the role of the sorter, anyone can become a block proposer through staking and receive sorting rewards. Metis is planning to introduce an AI node operation incentive mechanism to encourage more developers to deploy reasoning services that provide on-chain AI capabilities.

3.2 Metis All in AI strategy, how to drive ecological development through AI

To address the centralization risks and performance bottlenecks faced by on-chain AI services, Hyperion and LazAI have collaborated to introduce the Alith AI agent framework. Developers can use the Alith SDK to write "AI agents" that are deployed as contract modules on Hyperion. These agents can handle functions such as model selection, inference logic, and fault response, and can be directly called by other contracts on the chain.

Through mechanisms such as pre-compiled contracts, Hyperion incorporates AI reasoning into the on-chain execution process, and the reasoning results can be fixed on the chain through logs, reproducible operations, or trusted execution environments, achieving verifiable trust. This design retains the transparency of blockchain while meeting the computational needs of AI, promoting "AI on-chain".

Hyperion's parallel processing and low latency characteristics are particularly suitable for AI tasks, allowing simultaneous execution as long as there are no conflicts between requests, resulting in a significantly higher efficiency than the sequential execution of traditional L2. MetisVM has been specifically optimized for AI, such as using Rust/WASM to improve performance and supporting various inputs like text and images, enabling AI models to run directly on-chain. This entire design aims to achieve what Metis calls "the first Layer2 protocol capable of running large language models natively on-chain."

4. ETH Hyperion vs. Solana AI

4.1 AI Competition Arena

The market enthusiasm for Crypto+AI has achieved great success on Solana. The Solana community is promoting open protocols such as Model Context Protocol (MCP), attempting to allow off-chain AI models to query on-chain data through standardized interfaces. However, most AI solutions on Solana operate off-chain, calling results from the chain.

The uniqueness of Hyperion lies in its attempt to allow AI reasoning to be executed on-chain, which has not yet been achieved by Solana. If Hyperion successfully becomes the first Layer-2 protocol to support on-chain native execution of LLM, it means that it not only provides a data interface but also directly offers on-chain computing power for AI models to run in MetisVM, with each computational step completed within the blockchain execution environment. This design decentralizes AI more thoroughly than Solana's solution, as the AI reasoning results on Hyperion can be verified and traced on-chain, thereby naturally resisting tampering and censorship.

Solana has a natural advantage in high concurrency processing capability and mature GPU chip support architecture, while Hyperion focuses on compatibility and ecological linkage with the Ethereum ecosystem, including EVM compatibility, MetisSDK ecosystem, and METIS token liquidity.

Overall, Hyperion is not a direct substitute for Solana, but rather offers another approach to blockchain + AI: Solana relies on its network performance and traditional LLM interfaces (MCP), while Metis leverages its smart contract platform to launch native on-chain inference capabilities.

Is 4.2 Hyperion the universal key to unlocking Ethereum AI?

Hyperion is not the current universal key. Most of the so-called "AI + blockchain" projects are still at the conceptual level, and there are very few cases that can be verified as productivity applications. Issues of model ownership and trust have also not been resolved: how to trace the origin of models trained off-chain and how to prove the correctness of their execution results on-chain? These are all fundamental questions that need to be addressed at the infrastructure level.

The system design of Hyperion addresses the above pain points to some extent. It provides support for AI reasoning at the protocol layer, solving some computing power issues: parallel execution and optimization of MetisVM greatly enhance on-chain computing capabilities beyond traditional L2, but this does not mean that Hyperion solves all problems at once.

However, it can be confirmed that Hyperion has brought new possibilities for Web3 AI and provided the Ethereum camp with the chips to participate in the AI narrative. It primarily addresses issues related to computational architecture and the foundation of trust: a large amount of parallel computing power, on-chain verifiable execution processes, a modular toolchain, and native support for the special needs of AI. These efforts create possibilities for the emergence of truly practical blockchain + AI applications (such as on-chain autonomous agents and high-frequency data analysis), adding substantial content to the AI narrative in the crypto space.