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Understanding Advanced Smart Contracts

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Understanding Advanced Smart Contracts

The clever use of smart contracts has contributed significantly to the exploding popularity of blockchain technology.

Computer scientist Nick Szabo proposed a smart contract as a collection of instructions executing automatically. This technology aims to make contract execution as automated as possible.

Many know how basic smart contracts work, but finding a guide on their advanced versions is rare. After a basic overview, we will analyze two typical cases of advanced smart contracts.

For simplicity, the article will not deal with a series of technical details. Instead, the text aims to make it possible for non-technical readers to understand how this technology works.

A quick overview of smart contracts

A smart contract is a code that runs itself when the system registers specific circumstances. If and when particular events occur in a smart contract, a code executes a new action.

Developers build and implement the code, having as many criteria as necessary to execute a transaction. Some claim that labeling these tools as “contracts” is wrong, leading to a debate in the legal industry.

Smart contracts were one of the first essential advancements in digitally automating traditional agreements. Consequently, they allowed users to ensure an instantaneous execution with minimum human input.

A developer may turn a legal agreement into a code, creating a smart contract. Without further technicalities, this introduction must follow the remaining part of our article.

The most famous advanced smart contracts: NFT smart contracts

A non-fungible token (NFT) represents a unique digital asset. Fungibility is the feature allowing swaps between two indistinguishable assets.

Fiat currencies are the most typical example used to demonstrate fungibility. The same is true for cryptocurrencies: exchanging 1 BTC for 1 BTC is a possible (yet, absurd) action.

Each NFT, on the other hand, is one-of-a-kind, and we cannot replace it with another. We generally use NFTs to represent collectibles, art, and other goods in the digital world.

Non-fungible smart contracts are the engine generating these NFTs, representing only one token. NFT smart contracts have a maximum token supply equal to one, in slightly technical terms.

The contract contains a constant value that developers set to zero. The move makes this advanced smart contract relatively stable and secure without overcomplicating the matter.

Even those who are not particularly familiar with NFTs may have heard of the most popular projects in this sector. Think, for example, about Decentraland: an NFT-based metaverse platform.

In Decentraland and similar projects, users can purchase land and objects in the digital universe. These assets correspond to NFTs, which strictly depend on the underlying NFT smart contracts.

What are ALCs?

IoT (“Internet of Things”), like blockchain, is a technology that has caught the world’s attention and imagination.

Interconnecting billions of devices and allowing them to exchange data opens up a world of unlimited possibilities. But on the other hand, this technology creates data security and privacy issues.

Traditional IoT systems feature a centralized design in which data passes from an IoT device to the cloud. Then, the system processes the data to send information back to the device in this virtual environment.

Such a centralized system has very limited scalability and high vulnerability in network security. The problem is significant in situations when devices can start payments independently.

This limit is where blockchain comes into play. Application Logic Contracts (ALCs) are smart contracts on blockchain networks enabling devices to operate relatively safely and independently.

For this reason, ALCs are gaining a fair amount of popularity in the IoT world. Their implementation results are increased automation, scalability, and lower transaction costs.

Every network node must store a copy of each contract’s program code and state for on-chain smart contracts. Furthermore, since we talk about smart contracts, nodes must know how and when to execute the code.

Is it possible to hack advanced smart contracts?

The short answer is: yes; hackers can attack even advanced smart contracts. In addition, NFT contracts may contain bugs that a cybercriminal can exploit.

CryptoPunks, arguably the most popular NFT project to date, suffered a significant problem with their smart contracts in 2017. After selling thousands of NFTs, many found a flaw that allowed sales without receiving money.

This is a classic example of the importance of testing a code before releasing it. The problem with the code was one line, and a Twitter user explained the flaw in detail.

In general terms, there are many studies on hacking smart contracts. For example, in 2018, five computer scientists cooperated on research work and distinguished:

  • Suicidal Contracts, which anybody can terminate.
  • Prodigal Contracts, which recklessly leak money to unauthorized users.
  • Greedy Contracts, which lock money for an infinite period.

On the Ethereum Network, they examined 970,898 smart contracts. They discovered 34,200 of them to be vulnerable to hacking/exploitation, so one out of every 20 smart contracts.

Claiming 5% of the smart contracts belong to one of the three categories above is a severe issue. Since only some traders can read the code of a smart contract, the market needs serious auditors.

Final thoughts

Smart contracts will continue to be the wind underneath blockchain technology’s wings for a while. However, this technology is gradually changing the world, and it will be interesting to see its future developments.

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As smart contracts become more complex, audit services should become more efficient. However, whenever a group of hackers is one step ahead of controllers, we will have a problem.

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Born in Italy, Gianluca is a finance and data specialist, coming from an academic education at Sorbonne University in Paris and a career as Senior Advisor at Ernst & Young in the Banking and Blockchain sector.

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