A future of trust-less digital economies has never felt more possible The global adoption of blockchain technology is becoming more documented every day, with businesses and outdated frameworks in almost every industry sector able to benefit from the power of decentralisation. But as promising as this may be, the overall growth of this trailblazing technology and, in particular, the smart contracts underpinning the Ethereum blockchain, is being somewhat delayed by issues such as scalability and ease of use by those not fluent in the language of blockchain. Working on the protocols and platforms of the future, the teams behind the projects in this article are planning to see that the doors for enterprise adoption well and truly opened. Elastic Sidechains ( ) SKALE Network Technical scalability, user experience and cost issues have all been synonymous with decentralised networks such as Ethereum in recent years. offers DApp (decentralised application) developers application-specific blockchains, giving each application its own blockchain that but that doesn’t sacrifice decentralisation or security in the process. SKALE Network connects seamlessly to the Ethereum Mainnet Providing Ethereum-as-a-Service to developers through a subscription-based network, SKALE Network can support thousands of fully decentralised blockchains, also ridding of the crippling gas fees prevalent within the Ethereum network. The “ ” that SKALE Network offers means that DApps can build on high-throughput, EVM-compatible, storage-enabled and secure blockchains. Elastic Sidechain Network As an open source Web3 platform, the team behind SKALE Network look to bring speed, scalability and configurability to blockchain. Having announced , SKALE Network aims to over 40 integration partners and validators last year “advance development of Web3 technologies and make decentralized web more user friendly and accessible for developers, validators, and end users.” ( ) Cartesi Machine Cartesi Besides transaction fees and scaling issues, one of the main bottlenecks hindering global is the roadblock that a lack of compatibility with legacy software stacks presents. Solidity is no doubt a powerful and battle-tested tool for building smart contracts with, but it is by far by the world’s developers. adoption of blockchain technology not the most widely used programming language In a lane of its own, is exciting; a Linux-based virtual machine that enables non-blockchain developers to run secured via blockchains. Cartesi’s value proposition any type of computing application As the majority of projects look to either adopt Solidity and work with Ethereum, Cartesi stands out like a sore thumb, but it could very well be the missing link in onboarding the many thousands of “traditional” software developers out there that want to enter the but cannot due to limited or no knowledge of Solidity. world of smart contracts By , which is the open-source alternative to the ARM instruction set commonly used in smartphones or Apple’s M1-based computers, the Cartesi Machine in almost any programming language and development ecosystem that is supported by Linux. The second product Cartesi announced this year is Descartes Rollups, a variant of optimistic rollups with interactive dispute resolution that enables developers to code smart contracts that run on a Linux VM with a wide variety of mainstream software components instead of just Solidity. emulating RISC-V microprocessor architecture enables developers to create smart contracts The software development world wants to be more involved with blockchain, but this industry has largely been siloed due to Solidity being the predominant language used to write smart contracts. Having recently showcased the early results of their , which ultimately chose and gave them the opportunity to build using the Cartesi Machine, the team behind Cartesi are looking to that reaches far beyond the inner circles of the blockchain developer community and foster growth that will see the true adoption of smart contracts globally. DApp incubation initiative 3 projects build an ecosystem of developers ( ) zkSync Matter Labs With transaction fees on the Ethereum network seemingly , the elephant in the room is becoming un-ignorable. Ethereum is in higher demand than ever with the and, as the mainstream market floods into the cryptocurrency space once again, there has to be a solution to this bottleneck that is prohibiting the scalability that blockchain desperately needs. getting more expensive by the day introduction of so many DeFi protocols With Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin stating that rollups are “the only choice” for scaling the world's second biggest blockchain, are utilising the power of Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) to solve the “ ”. ZKP’s enable one party to independently verify the integrity of computations performed by untrusted counter-parties, and the Matter Labs team have used them to build as a possible solution to Ethereum’s woes. Matter Labs blockchain trilemma zkSync Powered by zkRollup technology, zkSync is a trustless protocol that enables scalable low-cost payments. Boasting mainnet-level security with zero reliance on 3rd parties, the Matter Labs team have built several ‘zkTools” including a , a and an API that provides a convenient way to into any website. wallet payment link platform integrate zkSync checkout flow The Matter Labs team are now working on permission-less smart contracts and recently announced a , a popular exchange liquidity pool that currently have over $4 billion locked inside it’s protocol. Having , Matter Labs has received support from recognised funds in the blockchain space including Hashed and Dragonfly Capital Partners. partnership with Curve Finance raised $2 million back in 2019 ( ) Arbitrum Offchain Labs By now we’ve established that the to users of the Ethereum blockchain has become an integral part of the mission to achieve global blockchain adoption. race to provide a faster, cheaper and secure experience Layer 2 scaling solutions for Ethereum Mainnet have been under development for a few years now, and some are finally read to attempt to tackle the burning issue; Offchain Labs’ Arbitrum is one such solution, or should I say solutions as there are in fact 3 products rolled up (pun intended) into a suite of scaling solutions. AnyTrust Channels, AnyTrust Sidechains, and Arbitrum Rollup. AnyTrust Channels and AnyTrust Sidechains provide the AnyTrust Guarantee which ensures that the code will run correctly as long as any validator is honest; Arbitrum Rollup, which is currently live on testnet, is like all rollups built on top of and secured by the Ethereum blockchain with all transaction data is logged on Ethereum. Arbitrum has three modes: The noticeable difference between Ethereum and Arbitrum is that Arbitrum enables users to interact with and , using the same tools that developers already use to build on Ethereum and integrating with the likes of Solidity, Vyper and Yul but without compromising on security or decentralization. deploy smart contracts at a fraction of the cost Having recently announced the release of , a port of Uniswap V2 on Arbitrum Rollup, the Offhcain Labs team look to showcase “just how awesome Arbitrum is by porting one of Ethereum’s most popular dapps”. Popular on-chain liquidity protocol in January such as Bounce, Burgerswap and MCDex. Arbiswap Bancor also launched on Arbitrum testnet alongside other DeFi protocols Conclusion With some truly pioneering technologies being designed behind closed doors, these 4 projects may well end up being the names attributed to the cambrian explosion of smart contract integration forecasted for traditional business infrastructures in 2021 and beyond. With pressure mounting for Vitalik and the Ethereum team to implement a complete and sustainable solution Think I've missed a project worth mentioning? Hit me up on Twitter.

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Taking Smart Contracts to the Next Level: Projects to watch in 2021

Taking Smart Contracts to the Next Level: Projects to watch in 2021

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