- The IOTA Foundation has published a pre-alpha implementation of the smart contract protocol.
- ISCP is designed for “scalable and feeless” business applications.
The IOTA Foundation has announced the deployment of the IOTA Smart Contract Protocol (ISCP). In a press release, the Foundation states that this implementation is “the first scalable and feeless” smart contract implementation on a UTXO ledger-based DAG. The protocol has been deployed in its pre-alpha phase, according to the release, and can be tested by users. The IOTA Foundation expects to launch a full version in the coming months.
According to the statement, the design of ISCP works by creating committees that verify the smart contracts. In that way, they remain “consistent and immutable” on the IOTA Tangle. In addition, the release states that the smart contract design makes it “ideal” for business adoption and real-world use cases. The IOTA Foundation also added:
We also believe IOTA Smart Contracts Protocol lays the foundation for a rich ecosystem to be developed, with a large variety of the extensions and building blocks that we anticipate will be created by the community.
Features and roadmap for smart contracts on IOTA
The smart contract protocol deployed by IOTA includes 3 main features. First, it includes version 0.0.1 of the Wasp software in its alpha version. This node runs the protocol in the network on a GoShimmer node layer. In addition, the ISCP includes 3 dApps in demo version as a proof of concept for smart contracts: TokenRegistry (IOTA’s colored coin mintage), FairAuction (automated marketplace implementation), and DonateWithFeedback (introduction of smart contract for donations). The referred dApps are included as smart contract programs in “the Wasp nodes itself”, as the release states.
The deployed protocol also has a version of an IOTA wallet called wwallet (Wasp Wallet). With this wallet, users will be able to “send and receive tokens on the Pollen network”, mintage tokens, and register tokens with a transaction. Additionally, users will be able to create auctions to sell the tokens and invite other users. The IOTA Foundation added:
(…) as a part of wwallet we provide a simple admin tool to deploy your own instances of one of the three PoC smart contracts with committees of Wasp nodes and a web server for PoC smart contract dashboards.
The IOTA Foundation further revealed that some functions have been disabled for the current launch. Among them, the reward function and the access function. In addition, ISCP lacks the Wasm virtual machine and a “programming ecosystem” based on Rust. In this regard, the IOTA Foundation clarified:
The Wasp node implements an abstract VM sandbox interface, so anyone interested can get acquainted with it and, if brave enough, even try it by forking the repository and writing your own hard coded smart contracts right into the Wasp!
The IOTA Foundation is aiming to implement the Wasm VM and a “Rust Ecosystem Development” by the end of 2020. In addition, they will make improvements to consensus, node rewards, security, and smart contract logic. The IOTA Foundation concluded with an invitation to the IOTA community:
The pre-alpha work of the IOTA Smart Contract Protocol published today is the culmination of months of hard and dedicated work by the IOTA Foundation. We see this publication as the first step in creating a large and vibrant ecosystem of decentralized applications in the IOTA network. We invite our community members to test our demonstration PoCs.
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