Portaldot V3 pitfalls

What breaks when you point ordinary EVM tooling at PortaldotV3 Test. Each entry says how to check it, what it costs you, and what to do instead. Measured 2026-10-18 → 2026-10-28 against wss://test-node-v3.portaldot.dev and https://test-evm-rpc-v3.portaldot.dev.

Machine-readable: /traps.json · everything here is reproducible with the command shown

1. An external EOA cannot send an EVM transaction at all blocking

eth_sendRawTransaction with every tx type, fee and gas combination returns {"code":1010,"message":"Invalid Transaction"}. Reads on the same endpoint answer normally.

checkcast send --rpc-url https://test-evm-rpc-v3.portaldot.dev <to> 'setValue(uint256)' 42 --private-key <key> # → Invalid TransactioncostA MetaMask/Remix workflow cannot complete its first write. Deploying from Remix fails too.insteadSign revive.call (or revive.instantiate_with_code) as a Substrate extrinsic with an sr25519 key: revive.call(dest, value, weight_limit, storage_deposit_limit, data). TwinKey is that path with a UI and an EIP-1193 provider.evidencedocs/FINDINGS.md §1 · revive.originalAccount(0x7FCC…) → none

2. eth_estimateGas is off by four orders of magnitude blocking

A trivial call estimates in the 10^11–10^15 range while the block advertises gasLimit = u64::MAX, so any tool that auto-fills gas builds a transaction no balance can pay for.

checkPOST /api/estimate {to, data} → evm_estimate.gas vs runtime_dry_run.gasConsumedcostMeasured live on 2026-10-28: 570,540,468,341 vs 50,604,168 — 11,274×. A 401 tPOT wallet cannot cover a 50k-gas call priced at 5.7e11.insteadUse ReviveApi_call's dry run: it returns weightRequired {refTime, proofSize} and storageDeposit.charge, which is exactly what revive.call consumes — and unused weight is refunded.evidencehttps://twinkey.vercel.app/api/estimate · docs/BUILD-LOG.md

3. eth_getLogs silently omits logs from native-origin calls silent-wrong-data

eth_getLogs over the full block range for a contract that definitely emitted returns []. Our own contract emitted at blocks 90995, 102680, 102716, 227275 and appears zero times.

checkPOST eth_getLogs {fromBlock:0x0, toBlock:'latest', address:<your contract>} — compare with the events of the same blockcostAny indexer or dApp built on eth_getLogs is blind to every write that arrived through the native path — which, per the first entry, is every write.insteadRead System.Events from the Substrate archive node and decode revive.ContractEmitted against your ABI. TwinKey's event feed and its /api/rpc receipts both do this.evidencelib/twinkey/scan.ts · /block/227275

4. Native is 14 decimals, EVM is 18 — the ratio is 10,000 silent-wrong-data

The same balance reads 1.0000 on the Substrate side and 10000.000000000000000000 on the EVM side. nativeToEthRatio = 10000.

checksystem.account(ss58).data.free vs eth_getBalance(mappedH160)costEvery amount that crosses the boundary is wrong by 10,000×, in the direction that silently overpays.insteadKeep bigint on both sides with an explicit decimal context; convert only at the boundary. TwinKey shows both denominators side by side rather than pretending there is one.evidencelib/twinkey/config.ts · /api/state

5. The H160 is not derivable from the SS58 key blocking

Common derivations (first/last 20 bytes of the public key, keccak, blake2 truncation) produce an address the chain disagrees with; funds sent there are still visible but not spendable from the EVM side.

checkcurl state_call ReviveApi_address <accountId32-hex> → compare with any local derivationcostWrong msg.sender, wrong balance, and a wallet that looks funded but cannot act.insteadAsk the runtime every time. TwinKey never derives locally, and says so in the UI.evidencelib/twinkey/chain.ts resolveH160 · docs/VERIFIED-FACTS.md

6. Only the EVM RPC prunes; the Substrate RPC is archival footgun

eth_call / eth_getBlockByNumber at a historical block fail with "UnknownBlock: State already discarded" beyond roughly 256 blocks, while state_getStorage at block 1 answers.

checketh_call at block N-1000 (fails) vs state_getStorage at the block hash (succeeds)costHistorical verification looks impossible on the EVM side, so people conclude history is gone and start their index at today.insteadRead history from the Substrate archive at a block hash; use the EVM endpoint only for current state and simulation. server-side: /verify reads archive, always.evidencedocs/BUILD-LOG.md corrections · agent/src/chain.rs

7. revive.instantiate_with_code wants constructor args inside the code blob footgun

Passing constructor calldata in the `data` field fails with revive.EvmConstructorNonEmptyData: "When calling an EVM constructor `data` has to be empty."

checkany deployment with a constructor that takes argumentscostAn hour of confusion on the one path the official guide does not cover for parameterised constructors.insteadcode = creation_code + encodeAbiParameters(...); data = 0x; salt = null. tooling/deploy-token.mjs does exactly this.evidencetooling/deploy-token.mjs · contracts/build/TwinKeyToken.deployed.json

8. @polkadot/api needs RevealApi.instantiate's code as a ContractCode enum footgun

api.call.reviveApi.instantiate(origin, value, gas, deposit, <bytes>, data, salt) throws createType(...ContractCodeV1) Unable to create Enum via index 96.

checkdry run before instantiate_with_codecostThe 7-argument runtime API is undocumented; the error points at SCALE, not at the argument.insteadPass { Upload: codeHex } instead of raw bytes.evidencetooling/deploy-token.mjs

9. Both RPC hosts answer 403 without a User-Agent footgun

A bare fetch/reqwest from a server gets 403 with an empty body; curl works because it sends a UA.

checkcurl -H 'User-Agent:' https://test-node-v3.portaldot.devcostServer-side integrations fail while the same code works in a browser, which reads as "the node is down".insteadSet an explicit UA on every service client (the Rust verifier does).evidenceagent/src/main.rs

10. Native tPOT cannot be sent straight to an H160 blocking

Air-dropping to 0x… leaves the native account empty and the EVM balance at zero.

checkbalances.transfer to the H160 vs to the H160's mapped SS58 via reviveApi.accountIdcostA funded-looking deployment that cannot pay for anything.insteadFund the native SS58 account; the mapping makes the balance visible on the EVM side (one-directional for funding).evidencedocs/VERIFIED-FACTS.md · ~/hackathon/portaldot-hh26-memo-addendum.md §1

Why this page exists

Each of these is a place where the chain behaves differently from what an EVM developer expects, and none of them is documented in one place. TwinKey only exists because of the first two; the rest are the cost of finding out.