ETH Belgrade, part of Belgrade Blockchain Week, is a major Ethereum conference that gathers prominent Web3 professionals and thought leaders from around the world to discuss the latest developments and trends in the Ethereum Ecosystem. Introduced in 2013, Ethereum is one of the most trusted and established blockchain platforms for smart contracts due to its highly decentralized security and comprehensive community support.
The inaugural ETH Conference in 2023 was a great success, leading to the formation of a local ETH community with monthly meetups. In March, HTEC hosted an ETH meetup in our Novi Sad office with Radivoje Nešovanović, head of technology, R&D, and tech excellence services at HTEC, and Mladen Milanković, senior software engineer II at HTEC and blockchain specialist. It featured engaging presentations on trending Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) topics.
The meetup was organized in collaboration with ETH Belgrade and Neon EVM, a company behind a revolutionary solution that empowers developers to build and deploy dApps seamlessly from EVM chains to Solana, all from their existing codebase.
Key takeaways from the Ethereum Virtual Machine meetup
The audience heard valuable insights about parallelization and transaction execution optimization on EVMs. Parallelization shifts transaction processing from sequential processing to simultaneous transactions, which leads to improved throughput, reduced latency, and enhanced performance of the blockchain network.
One of the presentations introduced the latest transient memory storage (EIP-1153) opcodes for EVMs. Using these opcodes, developers can temporarily store values during a transaction’s entire life cycle. The change in storage will make smart contracts cheaper while maintaining the same level of security. This is achieved by storing values in a transient memory instead of using a much more expensive storage, and then deleting those values automatically after the operation has finished.
The Ethereum community also learned more about the amazing advantages of Neon EVM. Designed as a fully Ethereum-compatible environment on Solana, Neon EVM features Solana’s parallel execution, low gas fees, and high transaction speed. It also provides full EVM compatibility, allowing for seamless deployment of Ethereum smart contracts written in Solidity or any other EVM-compatible language.
Last but not least, Mladen presented several ways to approach parallel transaction execution on a blockchain. This is a hot topic because parallel transaction execution can increase throughput and is often the choice for new chains. He also warned that this usually raises the need for more resources and can lead to system centralization. To demonstrate this, Mladen used Ethereum, sequential, and Solana as parallel systems.
Andrei Silviu Dragnea, senior Rust engineer at Neon EVM, shared his impressions of the event.
“It was exciting to present Neon EVM at ETH Belgrade meetup in Novi Sad. There was a lot of interest in the technical details of how Neon EVM is implemented as a Solana program, and we had insightful conversations and discussions even beyond the main presentation. With more such events, knowledge sharing, and brainstorming ideas, we can together move the blockchain field forward.”
Andrei Silviu Dragnea, senior Rust engineer at Neon EVM
Navigating future frontiers in Ethereum and blockchain
As a company committed to Web3 and blockchain innovation, HTEC started an internal R&D initiative dedicated to exploring the latest technologies in these domains more than two years ago. We’re also currently working on Web3 projects in self-sovereign identity and other domains —constantly improving and extending our capabilities. As a member of the local tech community, we’re proud to host meetups like this with like-minded organizations.
“It was our pleasure to host this ETH meetup. ETH Belgrade is doing an amazing job gathering the local tech community and promoting knowledge sharing and networking. Exploring cutting-edge technology with fellow tech leaders brings it to the next level — and hosting events like this is our way of giving back to the community.”
Radivoje Nešovanović, head of technology, R&D and Tech Excellence services at HTEC
Mladen is already looking forward to the main ETH Belgrade Conference in June, which he’ll attend as a speaker, and is excited about future collaborations between these organizations.
“Meetups like this enable us to engage in high-quality discussions on trending topics. For me, blockchain is more than an area of expertise — it’s my great passion, and I truly enjoy being able to explore innovative ideas with a community of like-minded professionals. I’m very glad that many organizations from the Ethereum space, including Neon EVM, recognized the importance and scale of ETH Belgrade and are actively contributing to it as sponsors.”
Mladen Milanković, senior software engineer II and blockchain specialist
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