Why WASM Smart Contracts are the Future
WebAssembly (WASM) brings a new type of smart contract that is gaining popularity due to its many advantages over traditional smart contracts written in languages such as Solidity. WASM is a binary instruction format for a stack-based virtual machine that is designed to be faster and more efficient than traditional interpreted languages.
As a blockchain developer, I have had the opportunity to work with both WASM smart contracts and Solidity contracts, and I believe that WASM smart contracts offer several advantages over Solidity. Here are a few key reasons why WASM smart contracts may be the better choice:
- Performance: One of the biggest benefits of WASM smart contracts is their improved performance compared to Solidity contracts. WASM contracts can execute much faster than Solidity contracts, which can lead to lower costs for users and a better user experience. This is especially important for applications that require high levels of throughput, such as decentralized exchanges or games.
- Language flexibility: Another advantage of WASM is that it can be written in a variety of programming languages, including C, C++, and Rust. This allows developers to choose the language that they are most familiar with, or that is best suited for the task at hand. In contrast, Solidity is a proprietary language that is specific to the Ethereum platform.
- Stronger security: WASM smart contracts have the potential to be more secure than Solidity contracts, as the WASM code is compiled down to machine code, which is less prone to vulnerabilities such as the ones found in Solidity’s bytecode. This is particularly important for applications that handle sensitive data or large amounts of value.
- Better error handling: WASM smart contracts also have improved error handling compared to Solidity contracts. In WASM, errors throw exceptions that can be caught and handled, while in Solidity, errors often result in an unintuitive “out of gas” exception that is difficult to debug. This makes it much easier to develop and maintain WASM smart contracts.
Overall, I believe that WASM smart contracts offer many benefits over Solidity contracts, and are a strong choice for a wide range of applications. As the technology continues to mature and gain adoption, I believe that WASM will become an increasingly important tool for blockchain developers.
One of the main advantages of WASM is the flexibility it introduces regarding language choices a smart contract developer can employ when coding. This impressive list includes Rust, C/C++, C#, Typescript. Such a selection allows developers to write smart contracts in whichever language they are most comfortable with. This is why Astar has developed Swanky Suite, the all-in-one CLI tool that will allow developers to write Wasm using their language.
The pros of WASM are as follows:
- It is memory-safe, sandboxed, and platform-independent;
- The environment possesses 64 and 32-bit integer operation support that maps one-to-one with CPU instructions;
- Floating point operations have been removed, which is necessary to enforce deterministic execution;
- It is supported by the LLVM compiler infrastructure project. This means that WASM takes advantage of over a decade of LLVM’s compiler optimization.
Here are some of the languages you can choose to write your WASM smart contracts:
Ink!
ink! is a Rust-embedded domain-specific language (eDSL) that compiles to WASM. This language was developed particularly for writing smart contracts for the FRAME Contracts pallet developed by Parity Technologies. The main advantage of ink! is that it provides an immensely open ecosystem for developers because it simply expands on Rust instead of creating a novel language from scratch. This makes it easier for veterans and newcomers to begin creating smart contracts without delay. Projects like Brushfam have taken notice, and are rapidly developing the tools to build Wasm projects with ink!
Motoko
The Motoko programming language is a new, modern and type safe language for developers who want to build the next generation of distributed applications to run on the Internet Computer blockchain network. Motoko is specifically designed to support the unique features of the Internet Computer and to provide a familiar yet robust programming environment. As a new language, Motoko is constantly evolving with support for new features and other improvements.
ink! vs Solidity
Rust is an ideal smart contract language. It is type safe, memory safe, and free of undefined behaviors. It generates small binaries because it doesn’t include extra bloat, like a garbage collector, and advanced optimizations and tree shaking remove dead code. Through compiler flags, Rust can automatically protect against integer overflow.
ink! chooses not to invent a new programming language, but rather adapt a subset of Rust to serve this purpose. As a result, you gain from all of the tooling and support available to the Rust ecosystem for free. In addition, as the language develops, ink! will automatically gain access to new features and functionality, improving how you can write smart contracts in the future.
Resources:
- To get started with WASM on Astar Network go to https://docs.astar.network/docs/wasm/.
- For production ready dApps (ink! + UI), check out this repo of dApp templates.
- Astar SpaceLabs will help support your project.
Learn about WASM Smart Contracts with this video:
About Astar
Astar Network — The Future of Smart Contracts for Multichain.
Astar Network supports the building of dApps with EVM and WASM smart contracts and offers developers true interoperability with cross-consensus messaging (XCM). Astar’s unique Build2Earn model empowers developers to get paid through a dApp staking mechanism for their code and the dApps they build.
Astar’s vibrant ecosystem has become Polkadot’s leading Parachain globally, supported by all major exchanges and tier 1 VCs. Astar offers the flexibility of all Ethereum and WASM toolings for developers to start building their dApps. To accelerate growth on Polkadot and Kusama Networks, Astar SpaceLabs offers an Incubation Hub for top TVL dApps.
