Blog

Blockchain smart contract technology is turning heads with its efficiency, taking the elimination of intermediaries to a new level. Smart contracts make it simple to carry out tasks, and there is little doubt that this technology will make everyone's life easier. 

What exactly is a smart contract, though? 

For those who don't know, a smart contract is a self-executing contract that digitally enables, verifies, and enforces the conditions agreed upon by two or more parties. 

The preceding definition may appear to be a little tricky. Let us simplify the process of smart contract development for you! 

What is Smart Contract Development? 

A smart contract is a two-party agreement stored on a blockchain, such as Ethereum or EOS. Every such contract contains a set of established rules and criteria that must be met before performing. The entire blockchain network's consensus guarantees these contracts. They cannot be changed unless the whole network agrees to the modification. 

Smart contracts are, therefore, one of the safest and most potent instruments for forming agreements between parties. 

How Do Smart Contracts Work? 

Consider a simple yet common situation for any firm, such as executing the payroll cycle to distribute money to employees every month. This activity has been done manually for centuries, with employees processing paychecks, considering holidays and leaves, computing tax reductions, keeping a ledger to record these entries, etc. What if you could automate this process with smart contract development? 

The solution is undoubtedly smart contract creation for producing and processing business payrolls. Let's have a look at how. The "if...then" principle governs smart contracts. A smart contract is constructed and set to execute on the 28th of every month. The smart contract includes a code that requires the company to deposit the wage amount to the account of person 'A.' Similarly, the smart contract has codes for each employee. 

The smart contract contains all the business logic for deducting monies for holidays, tax breaks, and other events. When the system clocks on the 28th of the month, the smart contract is automatically triggered, and the payroll cycle is started. No manual workers, no extra efforts, and it all happens in a couple of seconds! No data forgery or inaccuracies, of course! 

How to Build Smart Contracts? 4 Considerations 

The creation of a smart contract does not begin with its coding. Before that, the agreement must be identified and the parties and terms.

Will it work for your business?

Smart contracts are built on blockchain technology and digital currencies are used for payment. Therefore, the question is: do cryptocurrencies work for your business? If your business is already running on blockchain then the answer is simple. However, you need to perform thorough research on whether smart contracts will be applicable to your business.

Plan

If you have an idea of what you can do with a smart contract, you can start planning it. It is essential to understand what you want the contract to do. The right team of developers can develop a smart contract to transfer payment for a service, verify transactions, perform a cryptocurrency exchange, etc. 

Find a trustworthy developer

Once you've planned the smart contract, and the criteria have been established, a smart contract development company can assist in coding the smart contract. 

It is extremely important to pick the right team to build your smart contract. You need to look for a team with vast knowledge of blockchain because smart contracts are executed automatically without any human review, so if any part would be coded incorrectly, then your business can enquire big losses.

Test it

Researchers from the UK stated that there are 34,200 smart contracts that are vulnerable to hacker attacks. This means that testing is critical to the process of smart contract development. Any bug in the contract can cause a loss of your resources or your customers’ money and a loss of reputation.

How to Create Smart Contracts? 

Before jumping into developing smart contracts, you must know Solidity and Remix. 

• Solidity: It is a high-level, object-oriented programming language for creating EVM-compatible smart contracts (Ethereum Virtual Machine). Solidity is entirely compatible with how we humans write instructions, having similar properties to JavaScript. Instead of binary numbers/code, smart contracts for the blockchain world are coded using letters and numbers. 
• Remix: It is an open-source desktop and web application that specializes in Ethereum development and is an IDE (integrated development environment). It is a fantastic tool for creating smart contracts using the Solidity programming language. The development environment has a quick development cycle and many plugins. The Remix IDE is a learning platform and a tool for constructing smart contracts. 

Use Cases of Smart Contracts 

Here are a few of the most common corporate use cases for smart contracts: 

Digital Identity 

Individuals and businesses must protect their digital identities as their digital presence grows. Smart contracts can be used to maintain a self-sovereign digital identity, which aids in developing a user-centric internet. 

It also aids in the resolution of existing ineffective KYC processes. It also decreases the responsibility of businesses to protect user-identifying data. 

Trade Finance 

The current trade finance processes are inefficient and costly. There is a lot of paper documentation required, and there is a high danger of fraud. Smart contracts promise streamlined trading since they facilitate automated compliance. 

Land Title Recording 

Property transfers are prone to widespread fraud. When it comes to property transfers, smart contracts promise to improve transaction efficiency, integrity, and openness. Aside from that, title recording costs can be significantly lowered. 

Supply Chain 

To be entirely transparent, supply chains generate a lot of valuable data. The danger of theft and fraud is reduced when the supply chain is visible at every step. It streamlines the complex multi-party supply chain system significantly. 

Insurance 

Smart contracts may be instantly processed and confirmed. Many job duplications, such as report and policy verification, can be minimized for speedier and more cost-effective policy processing. 

Clinical Trials 

Clinical trials are still far from their full potential. This is due to a lack of speed and trust in the data-sharing infrastructure between clinics and patients. Smart contracts can speed up the process by allowing for secure data sharing. 

It provides better awareness to the ecosystem while also increasing efficiency at a minimal cost. Clinical trials and research can be optimized if patients have more trust in the ecosystem. 

Smart Contract Development Benefits 

Because Blockchain is the underlying technology for smart contract development, smart contracts inherit all Blockchain's characteristics. 

Trust and Transparency 

Smart contract development begins with both parties consenting to every condition stated in the smart contract, which is activated at some time. Smart contracts can't be modified once they've been executed because they're kept on the Blockchain. 

Data once stored cannot be tampered with by anyone during the application's lifetime due to the transparency and immutability of Blockchain. A smart contract is always trustworthy because all transactions are transparent, and every event is recorded on the Blockchain. 

Safety and Security 

The development of smart contracts on the Blockchain ensures complete data security. The cryptography algorithms in blockchain keep data in an encrypted format, making it impossible to hack or change. Because data is spread over the Blockchain, any hacker is almost impossible to penetrate. 

Decentralization and Independence 

Smart contract development is necessitated by the lack of any manual middleman or third-party authority. While Blockchain ensures decentralization, smart contracts reduce manual involvement by automating redundant and complex operations, eliminating human error. 

Speed and Efficiency 

Smart contracts are automated, reducing the time and effort required to conduct transactions. This automatically improves system performance and efficiency, so smart contract development is critical. 

Conclusion 

Financial institutions can now form contracts and engage with their clients using smart contracts. Although some companies are cautious about using this option, others have already begun to use digital contracts to improve their business processes. 

Smart contracts are popular due to their security and certainty of execution, and their growth is expected to continue. It's a brand-new manner of doing things that makes consumers appreciate its convenience in any business. 

Whether you've decided that your company isn't ready for a smart contract yet or are anxious to get started constructing one, make sure you stay updated on everything connected to this technology. And, of course, work with experts in the industry to ensure your safety.