EVM Instructions

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Overview

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Complete Instruction Reference

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Arithmetic Operations (0x01-0x0b)

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Comparison & Logic (0x10-0x15)

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Bitwise Operations (0x16-0x1d)

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Keccak (0x20)

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Execution Context (0x30-0x3f)

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Block Information (0x40-0x4a)

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Stack Operations (0x50, 0x5f-0x9f)

• 0x5f: PUSH0 (Cancun+)
• 0x60-0x7f: PUSH1 through PUSH32

• 0x80: DUP1 (duplicate 1st item)
• 0x8f: DUP16 (duplicate 16th item)

• 0x90: SWAP1 (swap with 2nd item)
• 0x9f: SWAP16 (swap with 17th item)

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Memory Operations (0x51-0x53, 0x5e)

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Storage Operations (0x54-0x55, 0x5c-0x5d)

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Control Flow (0x00, 0x56-0x58, 0x5b, 0xf3, 0xfd)

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Logging (0xa0-0xa4)

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System Operations (0xf0-0xf2, 0xf4-0xf5, 0xfa, 0xff)

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Gas Cost Details

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Base Costs

• 0 gas: STOP, RETURN (base), REVERT (base)
• 2 gas: Most context/block info reads
• 3 gas: Arithmetic, comparison, bitwise, stack ops
• 5 gas: MUL, DIV, MOD family
• 8 gas: ADDMOD, MULMOD, JUMP

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Dynamic Costs

• Memory expansion: 3 gas/word + quadratic growth
• SSTORE: 100-20,000 based on storage slot state
• EXP: 50 gas per byte of exponent
• LOG: 375 base + 375/topic + 8/byte
• CALL/CREATE: 100 base + value transfer + memory + gas forwarding

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Access Lists (EIP-2929)

• Cold access: First access in transaction (2,600 gas for accounts, 2,100 for storage)
• Warm access: Subsequent accesses (100 gas)
• Precompiles: Always warm

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Stack Machine Model

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Stack Properties

• Depth: 1024 elements maximum
• Word size: 256 bits (32 bytes)
• Access: Only top 16 elements accessible (via DUP/SWAP)
• Overflow: Pushing to full stack causes exception
• Underflow: Pop from empty stack causes exception

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Stack Notation

1. Pop b from top
2. Pop a from new top
3. Push c to stack

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Memory Model

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Memory Properties

• Size: Grows dynamically, starts at 0
• Expansion: Quadratic cost prevents abuse
• Volatility: Cleared after transaction
• Alignment: Byte-addressable, no alignment requirements
• Zero-initialized: Unwritten memory reads as 0

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Memory Gas

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Storage Model

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Persistent Storage (SLOAD/SSTORE)

• Key-value: 256-bit keys and values
• Initial zero: All slots start at 0
• Permanence: Survives transactions
• Gas complexity: SSTORE pricing based on:
  • Cold vs. warm access (EIP-2929)
  • Original value vs. current value (EIP-2200)
  • Zero vs. nonzero transitions

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Transient Storage (TLOAD/TSTORE) - Cancun+

• Ephemeral: Cleared after transaction
• Fixed cost: 100 gas per operation
• Use case: Reentrancy guards, temporary state
• No refunds: Unlike persistent storage

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Hardfork Changes

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London (EIP-1559)

• BASEFEE (0x48): Access to block base fee

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Shanghai

• PUSH0 (0x5f): Push constant zero (cheaper than PUSH1)

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Cancun (Dencun)

• MCOPY (0x5e): Efficient memory copying
• TLOAD (0x5c): Transient storage read
• TSTORE (0x5d): Transient storage write
• BLOBHASH (0x49): Access to blob versioned hashes
• BLOBBASEFEE (0x4a): Blob gas pricing

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Prague (upcoming)

• BLS precompiles: 0x0B-0x13 (see Precompiles)

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Implementation

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TypeScript

import * as Instructions from '@tevm/voltaire/evm/instructions';

// Stack operations
const stack = new Stack();
Instructions.Arithmetic.add(stack);  // Performs ADD
Instructions.Stack.push(stack, 42n); // Push value
const result = Instructions.Stack.pop(stack);

// Memory operations
const memory = new Memory();
Instructions.Memory.mstore(memory, 0n, value);
const loaded = Instructions.Memory.mload(memory, 0n);

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Zig

const std = @import("std");
const instructions = @import("evm").instructions;

pub fn execute(opcode: u8, ctx: *ExecutionContext) !void {
    switch (opcode) {
        0x01 => try instructions.arithmetic.add(ctx.stack),
        0x02 => try instructions.arithmetic.mul(ctx.stack),
        // ... handle all 166 opcodes
        else => return error.InvalidOpcode,
    }
}

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References

• Yellow Paper - Formal EVM specification
• evm.codes - Interactive opcode reference
• EIP-2929 - Gas cost increases for state access
• EIP-1559 - Base fee and BASEFEE opcode
• EIP-1153 - Transient storage (Cancun)

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Related Documentation

• EVM Overview - Complete EVM architecture
• Precompiles - Precompiled contracts
• Bytecode - Bytecode analysis and parsing
• Gas Constants - Gas cost definitions