I’m tired of forming opinions about blockchains based on what people say on Twitter.
Everyone’s either shilling their bags or spreading FUD about competitors. Nobody’s actually using the chains they’re arguing about. They’re just trading narratives.
So I decided to do something different with Vanar. I spent two full weeks actually building on it, deploying contracts, testing the infrastructure, and trying to break things.
Not reading the whitepaper. Not watching YouTube hype videos. Actually using it like a developer would.
Here’s what I found that nobody’s talking about.
Day One: The Wallet Connection
First thing I tested was the most basic interaction possible. Connecting a wallet.
I used MetaMask because that’s what 90 percent of people use. Took literally thirty seconds to add Vanar as a custom network. Same process as adding any EVM chain.
That might sound boring but it’s actually critical. If connecting a wallet requires downloading custom software or following a twelve-step tutorial, you’ve already lost most users before they start.
Vanar passed this test easily. MetaMask connected. Phantom worked. Even my hardware wallet connected without issues.
Day Two: Deploying a Simple Contract
Second test was deploying a basic smart contract I’d written for Ethereum.
I didn’t modify a single line of code. Just changed the RPC endpoint in my deployment script and ran it.
Contract deployed in under three seconds. Gas cost was negligible, maybe a few cents worth of VANRY.
I interacted with the contract. Called functions. Checked state changes. Everything worked exactly like it does on Ethereum.
This is where most “Ethereum killers” fail in practice. They claim compatibility but then your contracts behave weirdly or certain opcodes don’t work right.
Vanar handled standard Solidity without any issues I could find.
Day Three: Testing Under Load
Third day I tried to stress test the network a bit.
I wrote a simple script to spam transactions rapidly. Not to attack the network, just to see how it handles congestion.
I sent about five hundred transactions in quick succession. Small amounts. Just testing throughput and how gas prices respond to activity.
Every single transaction confirmed within two to three seconds. Gas prices stayed completely stable. No spikes. No failed transactions due to network congestion.
That’s actually impressive for a chain that’s not processing massive volume yet. It suggests the infrastructure can scale when real usage arrives.
Day Four Through Seven: Building Something Real
For the rest of the first week I built an actual small application. Nothing revolutionary, just a simple NFT minting platform to test the full development cycle.
Frontend using React. Smart contracts handling minting logic and ownership. Integration with IPFS for metadata.
The development experience felt identical to building on Ethereum. Same tools. Same libraries. Hardhat worked perfectly. Ethers.js worked without modifications.
The only difference was deployment cost and speed. Way cheaper and faster than Ethereum mainnet. Comparable to Layer 2s but without the bridging complexity.
Week Two: The AI Native Claims
Second week I focused on testing Vanar’s AI native infrastructure claims. This is where things got genuinely interesting.
I’d been skeptical about the whole AI native blockchain narrative. Sounds like marketing buzzword nonsense most of the time.
But Vanar has this thing called Neutron for persistent memory and Kayon for reasoning logic. I wanted to see if it actually worked or if it was vaporware.
Testing Neutron’s Memory Layer
I built a simple AI agent that interacts with users and is supposed to remember previous conversations.
On a normal blockchain you’d have to build your own database, manage state carefully, handle memory storage off-chain, and deal with all the complexity of making that work reliably.
With Neutron I just called their memory API. Stored conversation context. Retrieved it later.