Smart Contracts: The Cornerstone of Blockchain Transactions
Nick Szabo first coined the concept of smart contracts in the 1990s, a digital marketplace built on top of an automated, cryptographically secure world. In this digital marketplace, transactions and business can be conducted trustlessly and without middlemen.
Ethereum smart contracts put this idea into practice, smart contracts are computer programs stored on the blockchain that allow us to convert traditional contracts into digital ones. When certain conditions are met, a smart contract executes a specific task. This logic is similar to "if...then".
Smart contracts have extremely high advantages in security. Transaction history is transparent and visible to all, and all transaction signatures are cryptographically secure, eliminating the possibility of forgery. At the same time, smart contracts have the characteristics of eliminating transaction intermediaries and automatic execution when conditions are met, which reduces human errors and improves the efficiency of transaction processing.
Solidity: a friendly smart contract language
Smart contracts can be programmed in a variety of relatively friendly development languages, including Solidity, Vyper, Fe, Yu, and Yu+, among which Solidity and Vyper are the most popular smart contract programming languages because of their high flexibility and reliability. Solidity-based smart contracts rely on deterministic functions programmed into smart contracts, and are currently the most popular smart contract language in the blockchain industry. As an object-oriented high-level programming language, Solidity allows developers to develop programs around objects rather than specific processes.
Solidity is derived from C++ and JavaScript, providing a simplified development experience for developers already familiar with these languages. In terms of statistical types, developers must define the type of value they want to store, so that the contract knows what to compile into, and this is the core of the deterministic function of smart contracts. When writing smart contracts, developers can also use tools such as Remix or Solidity libraries to include various plugins and modules for custom deployment.
If you want to learn more about Solidity, please refer to the following link:
Solidity Overview: Introduction To Solidity - DEV Community
Solidity official documentation website: Solidity — Solidity 0.8.12 documentation
Ethereum Development Tutorials: Ethereum Development Tutorials | ethereum.org
Developing on Moonbeam
After a brief understanding of smart contracts and Solidity, Moonbeam serves as a bridge between Polkadot, Ethereum and other EVM ecosystems, allowing developers to use Solidity and other commonly used toolkits such as openzeppelin wizard and Remix to develop applications.
In response to the trend of multi-chain development, developers can also use Polkadot's native cross-chain function to freely convert assets, services, and information between parallel chains. Not only that, developers can also improve the efficiency of business cross-chain, and use native cross-chain protocols such as LayerZero, Axelar, and Hyperlane to achieve multi-chain deployment.
Moonbeam is committed to providing developers with a convenient and friendly development environment. Through Moonbeam network development, you only need to lay a solid foundation in 3 steps: create a node, test the test network, verify the execution, and you can play freely!
Moonbeam nodes contain both Web3 and Substrate RPCs, respectively for EVM and related Substrate functions. For developers who are familiar with Solidity and EVM compatible environments, I believe these deployments can be completed in minutes.
Step 1: Create a node
You can create a Moonbeam local node as an independent development environment to test and debug your smart contracts, or you can choose to run a full node.
How to create a local development node
Step 2: Test on Moonbase Alpha
After completing the test on the local node or full node, you can test it on Moonbase Alpha. This is a good opportunity to interact with other applications or protocols to better help you understand the advantages and problems of your application.
How to connect to Moonbase Alpha
How to Get DEV Token from Discord's Faucet
How to test deployment on Moonbase Alpha DApp
Step 3: Verify Execution
Finally, you can use the block explorer to verify your smart contract deployment and view the usage of end users to get a comprehensive understanding of your application.
Validate with Moonscan (EVM) block explorer
Using Blockscout (EVM) block explorer
Using the Subscan (EVM) block explorer
If you want to learn more about the development solutions offered by Moonbeam, check out Moonbeam's official documentation site .
Smart Contract Token Standard
Moonbeam is a blockchain that is fully compatible with Ethereum and is applicable to a variety of Ethereum-compatible Token standards, including ERC-20, ERC-721 and ERC-1155. Multiple development environments using Ethereum can be freely used on Moonbeam Network, such as the familiar OpenZeppelin Contract Wizard, Hardhat and other tools to compile, deploy and debug Ethereum smart contracts.