A list of must-have blockchain development languages to help Web3 entrepreneurs jumpstart and create a project.
Rust — the best programming language for blockchain development
Rust is a relatively young programming language, but has already proven its effectiveness in the blockchain industry. Not too long ago, it was brought into the spotlight by Parity, which has developed a related Ethereum client.
One of the founders of Parity, Gavin Wood, has contributed greatly to the mass adoption of Rust. After this, other big players in the blockchain market started to recognize the Rust language and its advantages. Also thanks to this, we can now use high-speed networks such as Solana, NEAR, Secret Network and other young blockchains.
What is Rust?
Rust is a multi-paradigm programming language created specifically to enhance performance and security. It provides a lot of documentation and tools, while providing a friendly compiler.
Rust is probably the most efficient programming language for smart contract development, as it allows efficient collaborative work for project teams as well as open source developers who wish to contribute to the protocol. The Rust language allows programmers to control low-level details without any trouble or micromanagement, providing a good balance of technical ability and coding experience.
Best of all, Rust achieves best-in-class speed and stability with a just-in-time compiler. Therefore, this language meets all the major needs of blockchain development.
Advantages of Rust:
- Clear development policy;
- Zero-cost abstraction;
- speed;
- memory efficient;
- reliability;
- Use the self-upgrade function brought by WASM;
- Concurrency-based opportunities;
- Management of mutable state.
example:
- Solana - High performance blockchain, fastest growing ecosystem in cryptocurrency. It offers low cost (less than $0.01 for developers and users) and fast transactions (400ms block time).
- Substrate — a blockchain framework that allows developers to quickly and easily build custom blockchains for any use case.
- NEAR — A complete ecosystem including sharding, proof-of-stake, layer-1 blockchain, a foundation, and a vast network of community members including developers, businesses, and idea creators.
- Parity.io — a blockchain infrastructure for the decentralized web, providing protocols that operate seamlessly at scale and allowing people to enter the world of web 3.0.
- Polkadot — a decentralized Web 3.0 blockchain network that enables cross-chain interoperability and scalability.
Go
Go has already made a name for itself in the blockchain world, and similar to Rust's story, it all started with Ethereum. To be precise, it started with Geth, an Ethereum Go client that is currently the most extensive solution of any Ethereum client
The next stage in the adoption of Go by the blockchain community is related to the introduction of Cosmos interoperable chains and its Cosmos SDK, a framework for rapid blockchain development. The popularity of Go is due to Tendermint, a BFT consensus integrated by many blockchain clients. Currently, Go is a widely used programming language and is used in many ways.
What is Go?
Go (commonly known as Golang) is an open source programming language modeled after Google's C language that is currently used for a variety of purposes.
Golang is one of the best blockchain programming languages today because of its easy-to-read syntax and fast compile time. It is a single language that supports simultaneous programming, which is very beneficial for many teams. Also, compared to other coding languages, it is relatively maintainable and efficient in the long run.
Advantages of Go:
- very easy to learn;
- readability and usability;
- high-speed performance;
- Ease of long-term maintenance;
- efficient;
- Suitable for high-performance programs and distributed ecosystems.
example:
- Go-Ethereum — One of three original implementations of the Ethereum protocol (the other two are C++ and Python). Currently, it's available both as a standalone client called Geth, and as a library that can be embedded into Go, Android, or iOS projects.
- Cosmos — an ever-expanding ecosystem of interconnected applications and services, connected with IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol).
- Hyperledger Fabric — an open source blockchain framework hosted by the Linux Foundation. It is modular and versatile, allowing the creation of various dapps and blockchain solutions.
C++
C++ is an iconic programming language because Satoshi Nakamoto used it to create the Bitcoin chain. This means that the entire family of alternative chains, including Litecoin, PIVX, Qtum, Dogecoin, and more, are built in C++.
Additionally, the C++ language is used to develop the EOS and Telos blockchains and their smart contract frameworks.
What is C++?
C++ is one of the oldest general-purpose programming languages and is also used as a blockchain coding language by many world-renowned projects.
Although C++ was first used in 1985, it remains a popular choice for blockchain developers and DeFi products. The main reason is that it provides fine-grained CPU and memory control, which is essential for any blockchain, in addition to high efficiency, code isolation, and compile-time polymorphism.
Advantages of C++:
- Efficient CPU management and memory control:
- Easy to run parallel/non-parallel threads:
- Compile-time polymorphism for enhanced performance:
- Code isolation for different data structures, etc.
example:
- Bitcoin - the first blockchain and the world's first cryptocurrency.
- Litecoin — the second oldest cryptocurrency forked from Bitcoin and became one of the earliest known altcoins.
- Ripple — one of the blockchain solutions providers, has created a real-time gross settlement system, a currency transaction and remittance network, among other developments.
- Stellar — an open-source network for money and payments, providing wallets and decentralized exchanges for fast cryptocurrency, foreign exchange and securities transactions.
- EOS — an open source blockchain protocol that allows programmers to develop, host and run dapps. EOS aims to process millions of transactions per second and provide best-in-class scalability and flexibility.
Solidity: The Best Programming Language for Smart Contract Development
Influenced by C++, Python, and JavaScript, Solidity inherits all the advantages of these languages and becomes the most commonly used programming language in smart contract development.
Developers from all over the world choose Solidity for its accessibility, precision, and extreme flexibility, making it highly regarded in the blockchain industry. From Uniswap to Chainlink, the entire DeFi space is built with the help of Solidity. Most projects choose it for smart contract development, which is not surprising because it is concise, well-defined, and very easy to learn and use.
What is Solidity?
Solidity is an object-oriented, high-level programming language created specifically for running smart contracts on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This makes Solidity ideal for developing smart contracts and dApps on the blockchain.
Solidity is very similar to JavaScript, which means it is very easy to learn for most developers. What’s more, it’s one of the fastest-growing programming languages out there, so it’s safe to say that it will be more developer-friendly and easier to learn in the future.
Advantages of Solidity:
- friendly to developers;
- Access to JavaScript infrastructure, debuggers and other tools;
- statically typed programming;
- Possibility of inheriting properties in smart contracts;
- accurate.
example:
- Ethereum — All smart contracts running on Ethereum are made with Solidity. The language was created specifically for developing and running programs on the EVM.
- Chainlink — Solidity is used to create smart contracts on Chainlink, a decentralized network of oracles that can perform computations on and off the blockchain.
- Uniswap — an ecosystem of protocols, cryptocurrency exchanges, a growing network of DeFi applications, and many other infrastructures, all managed by the community. Uniswap was also built with the help of Solidity.
- Compound — a protocol for building money markets on the Ethereum blockchain. It is an algorithmic, autonomous rate protocol for creating various dapps. Compound smart contracts are created using Solidity.
Motoko
Motoko is a good programming language choice for smart contract development in the DFINITY ecosystem.
DFINITY is a non-profit organization developing the Internet Computer, a public blockchain network platform based on the Internet Computer Protocol (ICP). It's a rather isolated chain, created out of the concept of a world computer that can't be shut down, and it won't launch until 2021.
Currently, DFINITY has its own independent DeFi ecosystem that works similar to the modern DeFi we are used to. The only difference is that it is written in Motoko and has no connection to the regular EVM chain.
Due to the isolated nature of DFINITY, there is still demand for the Motoko language, which can compete with EVM chains and Solidity.
What is Motoko?
Motoko is a relatively new programming language created by the DFINITY Foundation for developing smart contracts directly on internet computers. The language was created with blockchain technology in mind, so it aims to be safe and versatile, while providing all the necessary tools for easy and fast dApp development, as well as supporting the unique capabilities of Internet computers.
Motoko provides native support for Internet Computer canister (smart contracts), sequential style, simple modern coding style, and a variety of features to help us leverage orthogonal persistence. All these features make it an easy and safe language in the Internet computer ecosystem.
Motoko Advantage:
- automatic memory management;
- security function;
- built-in support for orthogonal persistence;
- Fixed-precision arithmetic.
example:
- Internet Computer - A modern public blockchain that allows deploying secure, autonomous and tamper-resistant canisters (smart contracts) and running them at internet speed.
For blockchain development, there are the following areas:
- Blockchain ecosystem development (cryptocurrency, blockchain forks, blockchain-based platforms, nodes, cross-chain bridges);
- Decentralized application development (dapps, exchanges, DAOs, staking platforms, crypto wallets, games);
- Smart contract development (smart contracts, stable coins, security audits, token issuance and distribution);
- Creation of development tools (SDK, API, online and offline IDE, plugins);
- Development of enterprise solutions (governance systems, logistics solutions, supply chain, compliance systems);
- Blockchain integration (for centralized exchanges, micropayment services, marketplaces, CRM, ERP).
Summarize
There are quite a few notable ecosystems with a plethora of programming languages for developing blockchain solutions, but ultimately, we need to choose a language. This is not the easiest choice to make, so in order to go through the process we should focus on choosing an ecosystem first. The choice of the ecosystem also imposes its coding language, which will give us a clearer direction of the choice.