Hedera gains full EVM compatibility

Hedera used its July 2026 recap to bundle a technical milestone with a set of institutional updates: full EVM compatibility, new custody rails, and fresh mentions in policy and market-structure discussions. That combination matters because “full EVM compatibility” is not just a branding line. It means Ethereum-style applications and tooling are meant to work on Hedera with less adaptation, using familiar developer stacks such as Solidity, Hardhat, Foundry and Remix. Hedera’s own documentation says its EVM-compatible environment supports those tools, while also noting architectural differences around accounts, keys, tokens and JSON-RPC behavior. (genfinity.io) The July recap tied that developer-facing change to a separate institutional pitch. Genfinity’s summary of the month said HM Treasury’s Wholesale Digital Markets Champion report referenced Hedera in the context of tokenized collateral, while a July FATF report cited Hedera material in its DeFi framework discussion. ### What changed on the technical side? Hedera’s push toward fuller Ethereum compatibility has been underway for more than a year, and a key step was HIP-1086, published on July 1, 2025. (docs.hedera.com) Hedera said that upgrade expanded Ethereum transaction callData limits from 6KB to 128KB, allowing larger smart contracts to be deployed in a single transaction. (genfinity.io) That change addressed one of the practical frictions for teams porting code from Ethereum-style environments. Hedera said the larger transaction size was designed to bring its behavior “more in line with other EVM networks,” while preserving Hedera’s own fee model and throttling controls. Hedera’s documentation still says developers need to account for network-specific differences. (hedera.com) Those include ED25519 and ECDSA key support, Hedera-native token services, and differences in decimal handling and account structure. ### Why are HM Treasury and FATF part of the same conversation? HM Treasury published the first report from its Wholesale Digital Markets Champion on July 13, 2026, describing a roadmap for tokenization in UK wholesale markets. (hedera.com) The government page says the report set out priority policy areas, industry action groups and the case for UK leadership in wholesale digital markets. (docs.hedera.com) Genfinity said Hedera appeared in that broader policy push through a tokenized collateral example tied to Lloyds Banking Group, Aberdeen Investments and Archax. The same recap said FATF’s July 2026 DeFi report cited Hedera as part of a DeFi stack framework discussion. The FATF report itself is public, though the web extract available here does not surface the Hedera reference text directly. (gov.uk) The narrower point is that Hedera’s July messaging put regulatory and institutional references next to developer compatibility updates, rather than presenting them as separate story lines. ### Which firms were added around custody and market access? Taurus and Mercado Bitcoin were listed in the July recap as ecosystem participants joining through The Hashgraph Association, according to Genfinity. (genfinity.io) The same recap said Fireblocks activated native Hedera Token Service custody and Utila was part of the custody stack highlighted for the month. Those names matter because they sit in the operational layer institutions usually check first: custody, issuance, treasury movement and connectivity to existing workflows. (genfinity.io) Hedera’s July package also included the Bonzo Lend recovery after a $9.05 million exploit, which Genfinity said the Hedera Foundation moved to cover within five days. ### So what is the practical takeaway from the July recap? (genfinity.io) The practical read-through is straightforward. Hedera is trying to reduce switching costs for Ethereum developers while adding the custody and policy references that institutional users tend to look for first. That is an inference from the mix of updates in the July recap, not a direct company quote. The next evidence point will come from usage rather than announcements. (genfinity.io) Hedera’s developer docs remain live for teams testing standard Ethereum tooling, and HM Treasury’s tokenization work is set to continue after the July 13 first report through the roadmap and taskforce process it outlined. (docs.hedera.com)