It appears the long awaited day is upon us.
According to a post put out by the @vsc.network team, the testnet is fully operational. This means that, for the first time, Hive has scalable smart contract that developers can create.
This was one of the major gaps in the Hive ecosystem considering the fact that many developers require these contracts for their applications. No longer will they have to move on from Hive due to this shortcoming.
Of course, things are just getting rolled out. At the moment, the team is focused upon fixing some bugs along with getting the documentation written. This is a crucial step for developers entering from the outside.
Mirroring EVMs
The idea of smart contracts suddenly brings us into the world of Ethereum and EVMs. There is little doubt of the success there, something that helped to stimulate innovation. We are moving closer to the time when Hive will be on an equal playing field in this regard.
Actually, there is one area where it is going to surpass the EVMs.
A little known secret about VSC is our smart contracts use Webassembly. To the average person, this does not mean anything. Though, what you need to know about this is that it enables development of smart contracts in any coding language. This is rather new in the smart contract ecosystem, with most smart contract blockchains being EVM based with little variety of language support. With VSC, you can develop in a variety of languages, starting with one similar to JavaScript, to Golang, and Rust in the future.
VSC is going to allow people to code in languages they know. This is a big shift compared to the EVMs, which require Solidity.
Why is this important?
There are two reasons. The first is the fact that it is more appealing when a developer can utilize what he or she already knows. This means the security lapse that come from a lack of knowledge of the language is reduced.
Secondly, there are a lot more developers to review the code. On Hive, we have developers with more than 20 years experience using certain languages. That does not exist with Solidity.
This allows Hive to enter an entirely different realm.
Here are just a few of the use cases:
The last is one of extreme interest.
Lite Accounts
One of the longstanding barriers to Hive was onboarding. VSC is one of the projects looking to solve that.
Lite accounts will allow people to engage with Hive without actually having an account. These are free to set up, eliminating another roadblock.
Without knowing how it is aLL designed, it is likely there will be limitations, hence the "lite". However, it will allow people to transact with the base layer coins, something that can truly only be done with a Hive account.
Here is what the article stated about this:
VSC has support for native FREE lite accounts, which allow for access to VSC and Hive. VSC Lite Accounts do not cost anything to create and fully self custody. There are no centralized service in-between the user and L1 assets on chain. Lite accounts are not just entries in a database somewhere, as accounts are real self-sovereign identities. The amazing part about this technology is that it can be leveraged to allow Ethereum wallets to own L1 Hive; no wrapping or bridging. This enables a Hive user to easily send Hive/HBD to and from any Ethereum address.
Here again, we see a major step forward. One of the major drawbacks to Hive is the ability the lack of on and off ramps.
This is another way to expand the reach by connecting Hive to the "outside world".
Potential Expansion
We are looking at a game changer for Hive. This completely changes the entire make up of the ecosystem.
Does this mean that Hive is ahead of everything else? No. Adding 4 tires to a vehicle does not mean one will beat Formula One cars. However, without tires, we know the vehicle isn't in the game.
Hive is now in the game.
Of course, like anything with technology, nothing operates in a vacuum. The great thing about digital networks is how things are leveraged. This development enhances everything else that is being built on Hive.
For example, developers can take advantage of the feeless nature of Hive's base layer. This could assist those building games as well as financial and social media applications.
Scalability
One of the most exciting aspects to VSC is the scalability.
When we look at how the node system is developed, we are seeing some advantages.
To start, nodes are not required to run every contract. This is a major difference compared to the EVMs. These are not base layer (to Hive). That means that node operators can select the ones they want to support.
This helps to keep nodes lightweight, allowing for greater scaling. We are seeing testing being done using a Raspberry Pi as a node.
Another scalable feature is with multi-sig. This was discussed in the past and is necessitating some code changes at the base layer. The net result is the amount of signatures signing a transaction can scale to numbers that are much larger than Ethereum. That chain end up only having a handful of signatures.
With Hive, there will be the potential of hundreds, or even thousands.
This is a major security enhancement.
In Conclusion
For many, this might not be exciting stuff. infrastructure rarely is.
That said, when dealing with new technology, which Web 3.0 is, before massive progress can be made at the application layer, infrastructure is needed. For example, the Hive Financial network, something we discussed, is not possible without the proper infrastructure in place. In fact, even a basic lending platform is impossible.
Using the automobile analogy, having the fastest sport car in the world is of no use without a road so why even build it? Once the road is in place, a Ferrari makes a lot more sense as compared to looking at open fields.
VSC is now providing much needed infrastructure.
There is still a lot of work to be done as stated in the article. We are not going to see things instantly change. Documentation is the next step along with getting front ends that people can use.
However, the network is operating while providing smart contract capabilities. Over the next couple months, it is likely that development teams start to incorporate some of these into their applications.
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
I hear the crowd saying that Hive is the game. 🙂
What are smart contracts exactly? Is it like a library in programming language? Thus that developers don't have to 'invent the wheel' over and over?
So if people have Lite accounts for Hive they can post on the front ends but maybe not be able to get a premium INLEO account and embed videos. Is that a correct understanding?
Good to know two reasons about this. Also at Hive, there are developers with more than 20 years of experience which gives them the advantage of using certain languages Good to know these. thank you
Is this a game changer? We'll see.
A gap filled. I have been hearing a lot about the lack of smart contracts in Hive. Though I don't understand fully how this thing works, it's good to know that smart contract is now here on Hive via VSC.
Amazing! How it is possible to send Hive from an ETH-address?
VSC has a special layer built for handling lite accounts and as a result will enable sending hive to/from an ETH-address
Hive is going to change it's impact massively, isn't it?
We will see a huge change 😁
Hive having a smart contract can really be a game changer if it can be well used and managed at the same time also. These are these kinds of updates I strongly believe hive needs to have now to push it to the next level or what do you think?
Now the big next question is if it's going to be used or not.
Wow, that is a lot of good things all at once. The Smart Contracts are good for both devs and users, while the lite account sounds amazing in onboarding new users. I am interested on what limitations they have. If the lite accounts can stake HBD, I can see a lot of people taking advantage of the 20% APR, and that might change because of this.
Making transactions is slower than Hive and accounts do not have a unique name. Only a randomly generated address. There is still quite a bit lite accounts cannot do where a having a Hive account would make sense
Thank you for answering this personally. The address is similar to how metamask is then. I have a lot more questions, so I guess I'll read up on it. Thanks.
Feel free to ask as many questions as you'd like on Hive or in our discord server