Creation of smart contracts for blockchain isn't an easy task but becomes easy when you know the basics and fundamental components of blockchains and smart contracts. Many people are still searching, how to create smart contract in blockchain? While, they have to select a blockchain first. Like, there are dozens of blockchains in the market and more are coming.
Before jumping deep into the steps of creating smart contracts on blockchain. You must know the basics of smart contracts and how smart contracts work in blockchains?
Table of Contents
What is a Smart Contract?
“Smart Contracts are the automatic executing contracts when the required conditions are met, written on it.”
Example:
Well to understand it more clearly, think of a traditional smart contract, in which both parties agree to sell and buy an item when the required time or money meets the threshold value. When it meets the threshold value, an intermediary manually controls the agreement b/w both parties are used as proof to complete the transaction of buying and selling. But in the Smart contract scenario, the execution of a contract is automatically completed once it meets the threshold value or required conditions (whatever those are) and no middlemen controls the contract.
Pros and Cons of using Smart Contracts:
Pros:
- Smart contracts increase efficiency by reducing the computing time.
- Smart contracts are tamper proof because of the distributed nature of blockchain ledgers.
- It eliminates the need for intermediaries and saves the fee.
Cons:
- Despite its efficiency, It needs the basics of blockchain programming that traditional people lack.
- Smart contracts are not legally tendered anywhere, so do not use it for real estate purposes.
- Lack of flexibility as we can modify the terms of traditional contracts but it is impossible in smart contracts.
How does Smart Contract works in Blockchain:
Working mechanism of smart contracts is based on 6 simple steps that we are going to discuss. These steps will help you to understand the answer to how to create smart contracts in blockchain, more easily.
- Agreement is made between two parties as a proof for exchanging the product or service in return of money or vice versa.
- A developer is required unless you can create your own smart contract, to create the smart contract that will execute automatically once the conditions it comprises are fulfilled.
- After making the smart contract, you have to deploy it on the selected blockchain that meets your needs. So that everyone can access it from anywhere in the world.
- Execution of contract takes place after the deployment, when certain conditions on contract are verified. For example, user A has to send PDFs to user B in return for BTC, if A sends a book then smart contract will automatically send BTC to B.
- Once the execution of a contract is completed, it is validated by distributed nodes to eliminate the intermediary need and to get benefits of decentralization.
- Finally, after validation, conditions of contracts are enforced. Let’s understand it with the above example. When any of the both users failed to complete the transaction on there end smart contract will not execute and can detect the failure from both parties.
These 6 steps must have given you the idea of how things work in creation of blockchain-based smart contracts.
Types of Smart Contracts:
Before getting the answer to how to create smart contract in blockchain, you must know the types of smart contracts. Because knowledge of different types of smart contracts will help you to choose the one that exactly meets your needs.
There are mainly 5 types of smart contracts.
- Self-Executing smart contracts are the one that executes automatically when required conditions are met.
- Multiparty contracts need more than 2 parties to confirm important transactions. I.e. supply chain management or finance.
- Token contracts are the cryptocurrency smart contracts that are mainly used to execute transactions of tokens.
- Governance contract consists of rules that specify the conditions of someone's governance and power of decision making in the blockchain network.
- Layer 2 smart contracts are the new upcoming technology for blockchain. Biggest drawback of this type is huge transaction fees and more complexity as it relies on the layer 1 of blockchains.
Best Blockchain for Smart contracts:
After getting the idea of what a smart contract is, how it works and different types of smart contracts you must know how many blockchain are there to deploy smart contracts on? And which blockchain suits the infrastructure of your platform and suits you best. We will discuss 5 of the main blockchain with some pros and cons.
- Ethereum Blockchain is the most popular and used blockchain network to deploy your smart contracts. Because it comes with great flexibility, customizable tools and user friendly developing environments.
- Binance smart chain’s smart contracts are compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machines which offers low cost transactions fee for smart chain contracts.
- Polkadot is famous for interoperability, it also offer, cost efficient, user friendly development environment and flexible customizable tools to make smart contracts fastly.
- Cardano provides the most security to smart contracts because of its centralization nature. Cardano uses Proof of stake consensus algorithm to back the network up and secure it more. But main con of it is to remove the anonymity of the users
- EOS blockchain network also uses the POS algorithm to enhance the security of contracts which comes with all the flexible and customizable tools to make smart contracts more smart.
How to Create Smart Contract in Blockchain?
Now we should come to our main topic of how to create smart contracts in blockchain after getting the knowledge of basic terms related to smart contracts that a beginner should know about.
We will learn the creation of smart contracts in 6 simple steps that are below.
- Choose a blockchain platform
- Define the purpose and requirements of the smart contract
- Write the smart contract code
- Test the smart contract
- Deploy the smart contract
- Interact with the smart contract
We will explain the above steps using a scenario so that you can understand more better.
Scenario: User “A” wants to send a digital product to user “B” on Ethereum blockchain network by using smart contract in exchange of money.
1. Choose a blockchain platform:
As we have discussed different types of blockchain networks before. Before creating and deploying smart contracts you must have to select the required business-related blockchain network. Below table will help you to decide which blockchain network is best for your business model or for personal use.
As for in our case Ethereum is best for user A and user B so we will select Ethereum blockchain network.
2. Define the purpose and requirements of the smart contract:
Before writing smart contracts in solidity or any other blockchain programming language. You must know the basic logic and functions of your smart contracts. For example what is the purpose of these contracts and what benefits it will bring to personal use to community use.
For example, in our scenario, We have to define the terms of sale, price of product, payment method and securities of payment mechanism that we are going to use. Additionally we can add delay systems in our model but that is not asked in the scenario so we will rather stick to the plan.
3. Write the smart contract code:
Things will get more difficult when you come to write the code to create your smart contract. Well it will not become a barrier to your smart contract if you know the basics of blockchain programming languages. Because all it needs is a few lines of code and a little bit of logic that any traditional person can develop.
So after selecting the blockchain type and confirming the purpose and requirements to be included in smart contracts. We are going to make a smart contract on Ethereum blockchain for the purpose of buying and selling products.
For the above scenario we have to create a smart contract using solidity because it's the language of Ethereum blockchain. In mastering blockchain programming with solidity, you have to learn it from many free and paid resources. We do not advertise anyone free of cost. So all, we can help you to go through 5 best platforms to learn paid or free solidity languages courses.
Well i know some basics so hurray, here is the final code to our required scenario.
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;
contract DigitalProduct {
address payable public seller;
address payable public buyer;
uint public price;
bool public isPaid;
string public productHash;
bool public isDelivered;
constructor(string memory _productHash) {
seller = payable(msg.sender);
productHash = _productHash;
price = 1 ether;
}
function buyProduct() public payable {
require(msg.value == price, "Payment must be equal to the price");
buyer = payable(msg.sender);
isPaid = true;
}
function confirmDelivery() public {
require(msg.sender == buyer, "Only the buyer can confirm delivery");
isDelivered = true;
seller.transfer(price);
}
}
4. Test the smart contract:
After writing the smart contract in solidity language we have to test its functioning. It is the main step before deploying smart contracts onto the blockchain. There are many platforms in the market that provide test simulations to test the functioning of smart contracts. Some of the most used and famous platforms are here:
To test your contract code you need to follow the following steps in any of the above platforms.
Step 1: Install the platform and set it up for using its development environment.
Step 2: paste your written or write again your smart contract code.
Step 3: after writing the code. Hit the compile button to see the results in the form of bytecode and ABI (application Binary Interface).
Step 4: Note down the test cases ( expected inputs, outputs and various actions). Means, perform every available feature of your smart contract to check any error.
Step 5: Deploy your contract on the local blockchain network of the simulation you are choosing.
Step 6: Repeat step 4 and perform the test cases that you wrote in step 4 to check the functionality of your smart contract written on solidity.
I performed the above steps on my smart contract and it works fine. Well if you need assistance then you can contact us by mail.
5. Deploy the smart contract:
After successfully testing the functionality of smart contract you have to deploy it on the real blockchain of Ethereum. So that anyone in the network could see your smart contract or could validate it. These are the following steps to deploy your smart contract’s ABI and bytecode onto the blockchain.
Step 1: Choose an Ethereum client such as Geth, Parity, and Infura.
Step 2: Create a wallet for Ethereum and buy some Eth to pay the fee for deployment. Well you can use a smart contract wallet.
Step 3: You have to use a development tool to deploy your code. In this, bytecode is submitted to the network for confirmation. There are many tools in the market but most preferable is “Remix” for our scenario.
Step 4: When the bytecode or ABi or required input is uploaded to the network then it will be validated from the validators to confirm it.
Step 5: Finally after getting the required number of validation your smart contract is ready to use.
6. Interact with the smart contract:
After the deployment of our smart contract onto the Ethereum blockchain both users A and B can complete their transactions and after getting a minimum of 12 validations/confirmation on transactions to enhance the security and make it more decentralized. Well that’s it, we did it.
Conclusion:
In this article, we thoroughly understand the working, creation and deploying of a smart contract on the blockchain. This compilation must have eliminated all the doubts and covered all the answers for your question to how to create smart contracts in blockchain. If there is something missing in the compilation then feel free to comment or contact us at mail.
FAQs:
Q1. What are the real world examples of smart contracts?
There are numerous examples of smart contracts such as, Supply chain management, Real estate, Insurance, Voting, Healthcare, Gaming, Identity management. We have covered 5 of these use-cases with thorough details.
Q2. What is the cost of deploying smart contract?
Cost of deploying smart contracts varies from blockchain network type to type along with time to time but average cost on Ethereum blockchain at the time of writing is 50-100 Gwei (gigawei), which is equivalent to 0.00000005-0.0000001 ETH per unit of gas.
Q3: What are the top 10 tron smart contracts?
JustSwap, Sun.io, TronTrade, WINK, TRONbet, TronLink, DLive, BitGuild, TronGrid, TronWatch. These are the best 10 Tron smart contracts. These services use the smart contract in the working mechanism.
Q4: Can a smart contract be changed?
No, That's what the main aim of a smart contract is: if it can be changed then what benefit remains there in it. So Once the smart contract is deployed no one can change and modify the items of smart contracts. Well a separate version of that contract can be deployed with required modified conditions.
Q5: Can Smart Contracts work without Blockchain?
Smart Contracts relies on the distributed technology of blockchain. So there is no possibility that smart contracts can work without blockchain technology.
Q6: What languages can Smart Contracts be written in?
These are basic 6 languages that can be used to write smart contracts: Solidity, Vyper, Rust, C++, Java, Go etc.
Q7: What is the smart contract meaning in blockchain?
It's the self-execution of contracts that relies on the technology of distributed public ledgers of blockchain.
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