Waves [WAVES] blockchain network announced on Wednesday that its smart contract protocol has been activated on its mainnet.
“As of block #1,190,000, the first phase of Waves smart contracts is available,” the statement read. Accordingly, developers can now deploy smart contracts on the Waves mainnet.
This feature was highly anticipated and debated by observers within and outside the Waves community and it was only a matter of time before Waves witnessed its first smart contracts. The platform had announced a major update last two weeks which included the protocol to enable Smart contract functionality on the network.
Waves versus Ethereum Smart Contract
With the Launch of Smart Contracts, Waves has taken further steps in its ambition to replace Ethereum as the go-to platform for deploying decentralized apps.
While Ethereum is known for its smart contract feature, the smart contracts have been plagued with a number of insecurities and bug threats.
Waves hope to correct this through its non-Turing contracts which are restricted to certain known functions. Users will not be able to write functions, recursions, and circles of unlimited nesting. This, the team explained, is to ensure security by preventing unpredictability.
Benefits of Smart Contracts on the Waves Platform
Notwithstanding, the Waves smart contract will support popular features. In its blog post, the Waves team described the smart contract protocol. It explained that the protocol will allow users to implement various kinds of account controls, including multi-sig addresses, token freezing, atomic swaps, voting, and Data Oracles.
These features will be available to Waves Smart Accounts, which are possible through the Smart Contract protocol and will use a new specialized programming language called RIDE. But unlike in Ethereum, Waves smart accounts do not use ‘gas’.
According to Ilya Smagin, Head of Development for Waves smart contracts, “the release paves the way for the widespread adoption of the Waves blockchain, while preserving the original spirit of Waves: simplicity and accessibility,” adding that it will allow developers build applications for the mass adoption of blockchain technology.
It took just about an hour after the activation for developers to start deploying smart contracts as Waves developer Inal Kardanov noted. “One hour after Smart Accounts activation in @wavesplatform MAINNET and there are two interesting contracts already” he tweeted.
Waves [WAVES] token price have remained steady since mid-September between $2.1 and $2.4. It is currently trading at about $2.3 with a market cap just above of $228 million according to CoinMarketCap.
Solomon Sunny is the market reporter for Smartereum, one of the global leaders in Ethereum, blockchain and currency news. He produces technical price updates on digital currencies and writes recent developments about blockchain.
