One of the essential features of every blockchain is its smart contract. While these contracts play a pivotal role in how every chain works, there is always room for improvements to be made. Moonbeam smart contract first started out as a validator on the Kusama Network. Its constant engagement with the developing community of technology tools and services led to its massive and rapid development.
Through this relationship and interaction with Polkadot, the erstwhile validator was able to spot an irresistible opportunity for growth; Moonbeam’s team of developers realized that a parachain’s smart contract would play a pivotal role in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Essentially, Moonbeam is out to fill the gap that developers might face in their development of Ethereum DApps.
In this blog post, we would explain how the main features of Moonbeam work. We would also seek to clarify what makes this smart contract different from the rest.
Table of Contents
Background
Moonbeam was developed by one of the leading technology companies in the world, PureStake. The company is well renowned in the industry for building some of the fastest evolving technological firms globally.
The PureStake team has built several world-class data centers, networks, and different platforms for companies with some of the stringent security measures. This means that they have played a significant part in the development of some of the strictest security measures that currently exist in the world. The developers have provided their services for some powerful cloud services platforms, mobile payments services platforms, and some other applications across the tech sector.
The firm is led by Derek Yoo, who has over 20 years of experience in building companies in the software and cloud industries. He had also co-founded Fuze, which grew to have over 500 employees and is valued at $150 million.
Derek has Stefan Mehlhorn, Tim Baldwin, Joe Rhodes, and a host of other top professionals on his team; Mehlhorn and Baldwin, combined, have over 30 years experience in helping to build top companies in the world presently.
What is Moonbeam?
Moonbeam is a smart contract parachain that is developed on the Polkadot network. The smart contract would be seeking to give developers a fertile ground for the use of the Ethereum toolchain and network as a whole, i.e., it would enable compatibility with ETH.
Being a parachain on Polkadot means that it would be able to enjoy security from Polkadot’s relay chain. To put it in simpler terms, Moonbeam would be able to interact with every other chain that might be on the Polkadot system.
Moonbeam’s vision is to enable cross-chain integration, which allow tokens from different parachains and parathreads on the ecosystem to be moved across.
It would offer builders a platform to quickly build on Polkadot while also considering their need to quickly and efficiently move their existing applications’ code to deploy on a more affordable and directly-governable platform.
Moonbeam’s usage, in the long run, might not just be for simple smart contract purposes. The chain could also bring some elements of DeFi into the Polkadot ecosystem. This means that oracles such as Chainlink and Band Protocol could someday run on the ecosystem.
Features of Moonbeam
Achieving the above set goals might be arduous, but it is not impossible. This is why the smart contract has some built-in features that would make the visions and goals achievable. Some of these features include:
- Moonbeam would be decentralized
For the smart chain to achieve its vision and goal, it is being built to be decentralized. This would allow the smart contract to be free from any form of interference of regulations or censorship that could affect its use in the future.
This was also put to thought to avoid scenarios where the current DApps might be inaccessible to it, while at the same time giving room for the same apps to be supported in the future.
- Built on Substrate Blockchain Framework
According to the developers, Substrate is an excellent technical fit for Moonbeam. This choice was because Substrate already has an extensive array of functions that is built to ensure greater customization and security. Furthermore, Substrate drastically reduces the time that would be spent on implementation efforts.
All of this would save cost and time developers might spend on building these same set of functions themselves. And again, the smart chain has an Ethereum compatibility goal, which can be easily achieved through the Substrate framework while Rust ensures the safety and optimal performance.
- It integrates the Web3 RPC API
While developers might fear how their DApp front ends might look after migrating, Moonbeam seeks to alleviate such fear by integrating the Web3 RPC API.
This essentially allows the developers to migrate their current DApps with little to no change to it. It would also allow existing ETH tools like Truffle, Remix, and MetaMask to be used directly on the chain’s system without any need to modify them.
- The smart contract has a full EVM implementation.
Developers can also be assured that their Solidity-based smart contracts can be moved without any changes. There is also the assurance that all of this can be done and the expected executions still have the same intended results.
- Allows for Cross-chain interoperability
Moonbeam’s development means that cross-chain activities can take place without much fuzz like in previous times.
Through the Polkadot network ecosystem and token bridges, there can be token movements and other activities across other chains. This is totally in line with what can be found on the chain’s website, “The Future is Multi-Chain.”
- The presence of an on-chain governance
This feature would allow users to quickly access the base protocol of the parachain to meet the developer and community needs quickly.
These features play a combined role in allowing Moonbeam to help future developers as the Polkadot network grows over time.
And with the assurance of an Ethereum-compatible smart contract, it would be simpler to implement such projects.
Moonbeam’s Ethereum compatibility
Moonbeam aims to be compatible and also operable with Ethereum. Essentially, this means that the following would be possible with the compatibility:
- There would be support for Solidity smart contracts that can run natively on Moonbeam.
- There would be support for Ethereum account structures and signatures.
- Moonbeam would support wrapped ERC-20 tokens that would have a bridge back to Ethereum.
- Ethereum developer tools like MetaMask, Remix, Truffle, and the Web3 JavaScript library would be supported.
- Moonbeam is expected to be faster than Ethereum Layer 1 in handling Ethereum DApps.
Glimmer Token (GLMR)
Moonbeam is a decentralized smart contract, thus, the platform would need a utility token to perform optimally. This token has been named Glimmer, and its symbol is GLMR.
The token plays a pivotal role in the smart contract design; thus, if the token is removed, essential functions of the smart contract would be sacrificed.
The functions of Glimmer in the smart contract would be:
- Used to pay transaction fees on the network.
- For gas metering in the smart contract execution.
- Used to power the infrastructure on which the platform runs
- The token would also be used to incentivize collators
Closing Thoughts
In conclusion, Moonbeam is a smart contract developed to create a cross-chain platform that allows tokens between different parachains and parathreads on the network to be moved.
The smart contract would also enable an Ethereum compatibility, allowing future DeFi oracles like Chainlink to be used on the platform. And with its Glimmer token, the smart contract already has a token that can be used to pay for transaction fees and carry out other functions on the system.