Introduction
This article describes what is Smart Contract, its uses, benefits, determinism, and the importance of determinism in the blockchain.
Smart Contract
A Smart Contract is a piece of code, or program, stored on the blockchain. A Smart Contract enables trusted and secure agreements/arrangements to be carried out without the need for a central authority; this is achieved through functionality and criteria defined within the Smart Contract. A Smart contract stores and self-executes on the blockchain. Execution of a Smart Contract occurs when the predefined conditions are met. Simply, a Smart Contract is the agreement between the parties and contains if-else conditions and agreement in its program logic.
A smart contract can be used in:
- Banking and Finance
- Voting
- Gaming (GameFi)
- Cross border Payment
- Government sector
- Supply chain management
- Trading NFTs (auctioning, sell and buy)
- Real estate
- Delay repay Schemes and many more.
You can find details of Smart Contract uses here.
What is Determinism?
A blockchain is secured by a distributed set of block-producing nodes. Generally speaking, the larger the group of nodes, the higher the level of decentralization, assuming that each node is being operated by a unique individual and has a similar stake/mining power.
Upon executing a Smart Contract, each node must reach a consensus on the execution result. If there is no consensus on the execution result, the execution will fail. For example, if the current system time was referenced within a Smart Contract, this would most likely be non-deterministic because there is no guarantee that every node would execute at the exact same time.
There are some guidelines for developing a Smart Contract with determinism in mind.
- In the Smart Contract, if we follow the same operational steps in the same order, we can reach the exact same state every time.
- On the blockchain, every node produces the same transaction order.
- The same computational operation performed across different nodes should return the same result.
- Any differences among the nodes for the same operation lead to the failure of consensus protocol. If it happens, then it is useless.
- Additionally, the same operation performed in different nodes at different time stamps should produce the same result output, for instance, newly joined nodes should give the same output as already existing nodes.
Blockchain’s decentralization and trustlessness are possible because every node in the chain validates every transaction, agrees on the system’s current states, and creates a new block in a deterministic fashion. For example, when a new user creates a wallet in the blockchain, a user needs to wait for the wallet to synchronize with the current state of the blockchain. When the wallet is synchronized, the user can interact, send, and receive funds. This process follows the same rules and creates a valid record of transactions for each user (node). And any node in the network can validate that transaction.
Smart Contract Determinism
Smart Contract must be deterministic because each network node should be able to produce the same result when the same input is given for a method. If the execution of the smart contract in different nodes gives different outputs, then it violates the Consensus protocol and the Smart contract becomes useless.
So Smart contracts should be deterministic and must avoid non-deterministic functions.
Stratis Smart contract tool (Sct Tool) validates for determinism and Format: You can check determinism and contract Validation rules in the Stratis Academy.
Benefits of Smart Contracts
Faster run
Smart contracts run automatically and faster than any manual process.
Security and Safety
The smart contract provides security as it executes in blockchain, uses cryptography and encryption at the blockchain level.
Lower Cost
As there is no middleman or 3rd party involvement in Smart contract execution such as a lawyer to proceed with the contracts. So it is considered cost-effective. However, the cost is associated with the contract deployment and call/interaction.
Accuracy
There is no human involvement during the execution, so no human error. Additionally, the Smart contract should be deterministic and validated for determinism before deployment, it provides accuracy.
Decentralized
A smart contract runs in the blockchain network in a decentralized manner on the network of nodes so there is no centralized authority to control it.
Trust and Transparency
Data and transactions are encrypted and shared across the network of nodes. None can alter and manipulate the record for personal or organizational benefit. Thus, it provides the trust and transparency of transactions and records.
Summary
Hence, the article has described what is Smart contract, the uses and benefits of a Smart Contract, determinism, and the importance of determinism in the blockchain. I hope, you have got a clear idea about it.
References
- https://hackernoon.com/dojo-of-blockchain-sovereignty-part-1-determinism-so1d357b?ref=hackernoon.com
- https://dzone.com/articles/why-smart-contracts-in-blockchain-needs-to-avoid-n
It’s awesome to pay a quick visit this web page and reading the
views of all colleagues on the topic of this paragraph,
while I am also eager of getting familiarity.
Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and
wished to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your blog posts.
In any case I will be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you write again soon!
I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own blog and was wondering what all is required to get setup?
I’m assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny?
I’m not very internet savvy so I’m not 100% sure.
Any recommendations or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
I needed to thank you for this excellent read!! I absolutely enjoyed every little bit of it.
I’ve got you book-marked to check out new stuff you post…
You really make it appear really easy together with your presentation but I in finding this topic to be actually something that I
believe I might by no means understand. It seems too complex
and very wide for me. I am looking ahead on your next submit,
I’ll attempt to get the cling of it!
After I initially commented I appear to have clicked on the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now every time a
comment is added I recieve four emails with the
exact same comment. Perhaps there is a way you can remove me from that service?
Thank you!
Great work! This is the kind of info that are meant to be shared
across the internet. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this publish
upper! Come on over and consult with my web site .
Thank you =)
you are in point of fact a excellent webmaster. The site loading velocity
is incredible. It sort of feels that you are doing any unique trick.
Also, The contents are masterpiece. you’ve performed a fantastic activity on this subject!
I want to to thank you for this fantastic read!! I absolutely enjoyed every
bit of it. I have you book-marked to look at new stuff you post…
I am extremely impressed with your writing skills as well as with the
layout on your weblog. Is this a paid theme or
did you modify it yourself? Either way keep up the excellent
quality writing, it is rare to see a great blog like
this one nowadays.
I could not resist commenting. Well written!
Thanks for your personal marvelous posting!
I truly enjoyed reading it, you could be a great author.I will
remember to bookmark your blog and may come back later in life.
I want to encourage you to continue your great posts, have a nice evening!
I was pretty pleased to find this web site. I need to to thank you for ones time due to
this fantastic read!! I definitely liked every part of it and I have you book-marked to
look at new stuff in your website.
Good day! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering if
you knew where I could locate a captcha plugin for my comment form?
I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having trouble finding one?
Thanks a lot!
Attractive element of content. I just stumbled upon your blog
and in accession capital to assert that I acquire in fact enjoyed account
your blog posts. Anyway I will be subscribing on your feeds and even I achievement you access consistently quickly.
WOW just what I was searching for. Came here by searching for blockchain