Introduction To The RISC-V Instruction Set CKD-VM And Its Requirements

Nervos CKB-Virtual Machine (CKB-VM), a RISC-V instruction set based VM for executing smart contracts and written in Rust. We considered the features that the CKB-VM will require during virtual machine (VM) selection for our layer 1 blockchain Nervos CKB. For a VM to be used on a blockchain, it must meet two mandatory conditions:

1. Certainty: For a fixed program and input, the VM must always return the same output result. The result must not be dependant on external conditions such as time or the running environment.
2. Security: The VM must not affect the operation of its host.