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Smart Contracts

Smart Contracts

Smart contracts were first proposed by Nick Szabo in 1995, designed to automatically execute, control, or record events and actions according to the terms of a contract or agreement. The goal of smart contracts is to reduce the need for trusted intermediaries, arbitration costs, and fraud losses, as well as to minimize malicious and accidental exceptions.

Ethereum was the first to introduce the concept of smart contracts as applications on its network. The concept has since expanded across the entire blockchain space. Smart contracts have become the foundation of decentralized applications. Beginners can think of contracts as backend service programs for applications.

Key Features of Smart Contracts

  • Decentralization: Smart contract programs run on multiple nodes across the blockchain network, preventing single points of failure and improving security and reliability.
  • Immutability: Once a smart contract is deployed on the blockchain, its code and conditions cannot be changed.
  • Transparency: The code (usually open source) and execution of smart contracts are visible to all participants, increasing transaction transparency.

Smart Contracts Across Platforms

Ethereum Smart Contracts

Ethereum smart contracts are collections of code and data (state). Smart contract code is primarily written in the Solidity language. The EVM is the virtual machine that executes Solidity bytecode. Since there are many EVM-compatible chains, such as Polygon, BNB Chain, and Gnosis Chain, these chains also use Solidity for writing smart contracts.

Solidity is currently the most widely used language in the smart contract space, with a rich toolchain. Users can choose from development frameworks and tools such as Remix, Foundry, and Hardhat.

Solana Programs

Smart contracts on Solana are called programs. Unlike Ethereum contracts, programs do not contain data. Solana is a high-performance blockchain that, through the separation of programs and data, enables smart contracts to process instructions from different transactions in parallel during execution.

Programs are primarily written using the Rust language and the Solana SDK. Solana provides the Anchor development framework to simplify program development, which includes high-level abstractions, auto-generated client code, and testing tools.

Move Smart Contracts

Move is a programming language designed specifically for blockchain and smart contracts, originally developed by Facebook (now Meta) for its blockchain project Libra (later renamed Diem). The Move language aims to improve the security and flexibility of smart contracts and is used in multiple blockchains including Aptos and Sui.

Move borrows the concept of resource ownership from Rust, so resources in Move programs cannot be accidentally lost or copied, preventing common security vulnerabilities.

TON Smart Contracts

TON smart contracts consist of code (compiled TVM instructions) and data (persistent state) stored at an address on the TON blockchain. They run on the TVM (TON Virtual Machine).

TON smart contracts are typically written in the FunC programming language.

Starknet Smart Contracts

StarkNet is an Ethereum Layer 2 based on the STARK (Scalable Transparent Argument of Knowledge) proof system, designed to achieve Ethereum scalability. StarkNet smart contracts are written in the Cairo programming language. Cairo is a programming language developed by StarkWare specifically for blockchain and zero-knowledge proofs. By generating efficient STARK proofs, it enables blockchains to process large-scale transactions and complex computations.

Cairo programs (bytecode) are executed on StarkWare's zkVM (STARK VM), generating STARK proofs that can be verified on-chain, ensuring the correctness and security of program execution results.