Smart contracts are an integral part of the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. Several projects offer smart contract technology to its users, allowing people to create decentralized applications and agreements. Most people know Ethereum for their smart contract technology, but there are some others projects out there focusing on this technology as well.
As unlikely as it may sound to some, smart contract technology has been made available to bitcoin users several years ago. Through the Bithalo project, bitcoin enthusiasts can effectively create contracts which auto-complete based on certain milestones and events. For some reason, this project never got the full attention from the bitcoin community.
Several companies and project will use the bitcoin blockchain to integrate more smart contract functionality in the future. Circle announced “Spark” in December of 2016, a platform powered by Bitcoin to create smart contracts. Additionally, the Rootstock team is working on their platform which brings smart contracts to the bitcoin blockchain as well. Exciting times are ahead for bitcoin coders and developers.
When the Lisk team announced their project, they immediately received a lot of support from developers and coding enthusiasts. Lisk focuses on sidechains, which address the problem of scalability in a rather intriguing way. The technology also accommodates the development of decentralized applications through smart contract technology. However, there are some factors to take into account.
First of all, Lisk’s smart contract language is 100% JavaScript based. This coding language has had its merits, but quickly became less popular due to its limitations and not being the most reliable at times. Additionally, Lisk’s smart contracts have “rules” developers have to follow, otherwise, they risk breaking consensus. However, using JavaScript also means there is unlimited growth potential for Lisk. CEO Max Kordek posted a thorough thought piece on Lisk’s smart contracts here.
When talking about smart contracts, it is impossible not to give Ethereum a mention. Coders from all over the world have taken a liking to the Ethereum smart contract language, as the number of DApps in development continues to grow on a regular basis. In fact, we highlighted some of the more intriguing DApps in development in a previous article.
Unfortunately, this disruptive technology is not without its flaws either. In November of 2016, a major bug was discovered in Ethereum’s smart contract language. This bug allowed most of the smart contracts to be either taken down or changed by an unknown third party. Anyone who owns a decentralized smart contract would be unable to fix this bug, which poses a severe risk. Thankfully, the bug only affected a minority of all smart contracts in existence.
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