Smart Contracts
Overview
Astar Network supports smart contract deployment in two environments: Solidity contracts running on the EVM, and ink! contracts (Rust-based) running on pallet-contracts.
Astar Network is a Polkadot parachain. Block production is handled by collators; finality is inherited from the Polkadot Relay Chain's nominated proof-of-stake validators.
Developers can use Swanky Suite for Wasm smart contracts or standard EVM tooling (Hardhat, Foundry) for Solidity contracts.
WebAssembly smart contracts
Astar & Shiden runtimes are based on Substrate, and both networks incorporate pallet-contracts, a sandboxed environment used to deploy and execute WebAssembly smart contracts. Any language that compiles to Wasm may be deployed and run on this Wasm Virtual Machine, however, the code should be compatible with the pallet-contracts API.
To avoid unnecessary complexity, and writing boilerplate code, the most appropriate method of building will involve the use of an eDSL specifically targeting pallet-contracts, such as [ink!] (based on Rust), or [ask!] (based on AssemblyScript), or possibly others as the ecosystem grows.
After compilation, a Wasm blob can then be deployed and stored onchain.
Ethereum Virtual Machine smart contracts
Astar EVM implementation is based on the Substrate Pallet-EVM, and we get a full Rust-based EVM implementation. Smart contracts on Astar EVM can be implemented using Solidity, Vyper, and any other language which can compile smart contracts to EVM-compatible bytecode. Pallet-EVM aims to provide a low-friction and secure environment for the development, testing, and execution of smart contracts that is compatible with the existing Ethereum developer toolchain.