Using Smart Contracts to Solve Problems: A Look at Use Cases
The Modern World and Blockchain Technologies
Let's delve a little deeper into the cryptosphere. Thanks to Vitalik Buterin, one of the most well-known pioneers of blockchain technology in the current world, there are new phenomena—Ethereum(ETH) and smart contracts—based on cryptocurrencies. In this article, you will learn about the main functions, potential uses, and benefits of smart contracts, as well as the areas in which they can be used:
Your objective is to draw your own conclusions about smart contracts' business worth, either intuitively or based on real-world facts and personal experience.
What Are Smart Contracts, and How Beneficial Are They?
Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency that was fit for the smart contract concept, but the difficulty is that its use case is extremely limited. Bitcoin transactions are limited to procedures such as money transfers between users. As a result, potential smart contracts aren't as popular as they once were.
To address such issues, Ethereum was built. To put it another way, the EVM's (Ethereum virtual machine) idea is that all of the smart contract's procedures or functions are conducted as transactions, with block confirmations: mining and data input. To compile, deploy, and run the contract's functions and methods, you'll also need a programme. Remix is the appropriate integrated web app, and it can also assist you in compiling your smart contract source code.
After deploying a smart contract, you can interact with it via a variety of wallets (MEW, Ethereum Wallet/MIST, Parity...). You can change ownership, mint tokens, set a budget, and more. All you'll need is your wallet (along with a private key or keystore file) and a balance greater than zero, as all transactions will incur a modest gas tax. To put it another way, there are no third parties, no intermediaries, and no hefty fees—just integrity and security.
Implementation of Smart Contracts
It's worth mentioning the Solidity coding language, which allows EVM to run smart contracts. Solidity is a useful programming language since it not only solves computational issues, but it also specifies data structures in contract code, which is often a collection of contracts with.sol file extensions. This strengthens and amplifies the language. Solidity has grown in popularity as a result of this. Because Solidity is continually updated and refurbished, it is critical to maintain track of new versions.
A sample of smart contract code is shown below. The first line specifies the Solidity 0.4.0 version. To show, developers are already utilising the 0.4.19 version at the start of 2018. This demonstrates that the Solidity programming language is always evolving.
In addition to the information provided above, you may use Cryptoauxiliary to learn more about how the smart contract blockchain works.
What Is the Purpose of Gas?
At the same time, when establishing a smart contract, there is one fair condition: the developer must make the contract as transparent as possible, so that it consumes enough gas to implement the code and conduct some actions. Every time transactional functions are performed, gas will be consumed.
Any transaction will require you to select the gas price and the gas limit. Let's have a look at how these two terms are related. As a result, the vending machine requires payment in Ethereum for the gas cost (which includes the gas price and the gas limit), which will be utilised by miners to confirm the blocks in your transaction. The gas limit is the most money a person can spend in a single transaction. It is critical that the transaction does not fail. It will not be profitable for you to reduce the gas limit. You pay the gas price per unit of gas, therefore if you want to save money on petrol, you'll have to authenticate your transaction, which will take a long time. In most cases, 40 GWEI ensures that your transaction will be successful.
Mainnet vs. Testnet
Another important feature of EVM is the ability to deploy a smart contract to the test network. You'll be able to test your code and prevent it from crashing before deploying it to the mainnet and letting it go. This will assist you in ensuring that your code performs as intended, that vulnerabilities are minimised, and that your work is flawless.
You can also use one of the various test nets, such as Ropsten, Rinkeby, or Kovan. Rinkeby is a piece of cake. There are a plethora of guides available on how to receive free test Ethers into your test wallet so you can try it out.
The most crucial aspect, however, is deploying your smart contract to the main network. If you want to use the Ethereum Wallet/MIST, be prepared to wait a long time for the main network to download due to the large number of blocks to be downloaded. When deploying the contract, you must be cautious with all of the data you enter.
Smart Contracts are used in which industries?
Why are smart contracts so expensive? Let's delve a little further. Smart contracts are designed to solve a variety of issues by making complex processes simple and accessible. Many ICOs use smart contracts as their foundation. They assist people in attracting additional investors and growing their enterprises to its full potential. In reality, the Cryptoauxiliary team is sure that these terms are accurate.
For the Financial Industry, Smart Contracts
Smart contracts, without a doubt, have an innovative impact on the financial world. When organisations choose to use smart contracts for their initiatives, intermediaries are left behind. When it comes to recording and preserving financial data and information, completing transactions, and making payments, smart contracts can be quite valuable. However, not all forms of agreements can be expanded using blockchain technology.
You can see how many financial services rely on smart contracts and blockchain in the table below:
Smart contracts in investment banking can address the issue of unnecessarily high costs for payment operations or other sorts of loans and credit. Smart contracts will assist mortgage lending in retail banking since banks would be able to minimise expenses for processing banking activities. Insurance automation will result in increased annual savings for both insurers and clients.
Auto-sufficiency is a key aspect of smart contracts. They are capable of conducting transactions, collecting funds, and storing and distributing resources without the use of intermediaries. Any relevant functions can be performed automatically by smart-contract code. Furthermore, there is no possibility of fraud.
When it comes to legalising smart contracts, though, problems can develop. When two parties propose the establishment of legal connections, it is dependent on the country's jurisdiction and requirements.
There's also a compelling example that demonstrates the advantages of smart contracts over traditional banking systems. Many financial organisations utilise the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, to maintain track of financial transactions. SWIFT completes transactions/payments between two banks through the employment of a middleman (bank). If the middleman takes money, however, the banks will be unable to identify the criminal. The benefit of using smart contracts to complete transactions is that they eliminate the need for middlemen.
Smart Contracts Can Be Used in the Workplace
It's critical to look into how blockchain might help your company develop and improve. To run a profitable business, a number of newly-founded firms are relying on the blockchain system and smart contracts. These cutting-edge technologies have the potential to propel practically any company to success and greatness.
Smart contracts help you save money and run your business more efficiently. You can easily check agreements that will allow direct business relations to be established.
To show how blockchain can be utilised to take your business to the next level, consider the following business models:
Small firms can benefit from smart contracts as well. The automation procedure is the first point to mention. All of your company's payments can be processed without the use of a banking system. Payments for internet, rent, food, and other expenses can be scheduled according to a specific date and time. And the payments are received by the counterparty without having to wait a few weeks for all of the bank requirements.
Furthermore, smart contracts can be used to replace and store a large number of paperwork and records.
Advertising with Smart Contracts and Blockchain is a viable option.
In terms of blockchain technology, it may sound far-fetched to deploy smart contracts in advertising. However, using the blockchain system, it is feasible to construct a profitable advertising operation. Smart contracts can be used to reward mass-media advertisements right away.
Controlling your advertising budget is also vital. When a campaign involves a large number of people and revenue is shared among them, it becomes more difficult to keep track of all the operations. Automating the process for creating and running intensive campaigns, as well as arranging payments and tasks, is a must. You can manage your project properly and transparently with smart contracts.
Nasdaq's NYIAX (New York Interactive Advertising Exchange) is a blockchain-based exchange. The goal is to create an automated contract execution system for media purchases. Another important feature is its cloud deployment. The NYIAX exchange platform facilitates the publication and trade of advertising. Companies can boost earnings by lowering transaction fees with the help of this platform.
NYIAX CEO Lou Severine offered this positive assessment of the platform:
One trading platform that makes use of smart contracts for advertising is NYIAX.
Overall, digitising your firm will improve profitability and simplify, transparent, and secure all of its activities.
Revenue-Sharing Smart Contracts
Revenue sharing is common in a variety of industries, including advertising, mass media, politics, healthcare, sports, and so on. It depends on the industry, but there is a growing demand for it. Paying bonuses to attracting new clients are all examples of revenue sharing. The key goal, however, is to give stakeholders with their revenue share in a timely manner.
Smart contracts are implemented and compared with agreements that ensure the conditions are met accurately and without delay in order to give accurate profit-sharing. This method of business management is quite reliable.
To illustrate, a person invests a significant amount of money in a company and so becomes a shareholder. He anticipates receiving his revenue in a timely manner, with no errors in calculation. This problem is solved by a smart contract: the revenue-sharing is carried out automatically, as agreed upon at the contract's establishment. Take a look at the following strategy:
Gift Cards with Smart Contracts
Is it feasible to use Ethereum to make gift cards? Let's look into it. Using smart contracts for gift cards serves a purpose that is more complex than it appears at first glance. The major goals are to boost sales and to be able to make purchases on someone else's behalf.
The following logic should be implemented in gift card smart contracts: the token holder should be able to set the beneficiary by calling the smart contract's function with the gift card's ID. The person will be able to obtain the tokens that have already been prepaid in this manner.
Here's an example of what a gift card code should look like:
struct Card {
uint value;
uint issueDate;
uint validThru;
address beneficiary;
address generatedBy;
bool rechargeable;
bool transfereable;
}
In the later phases of development, secondary traits can be distinguished.
For example, the Gyft Block trading platform was designed to make using gift cards in the blockchain system easier. It allows users to trade gift cards and purchase items such as coffee.
Gyft's Head of Special Projects, Guillaume Lebleu, stated the project's concept:
Guillaume Lebleu explains Gyfts, a blockchain-based network for gift cards.
This solution is less intrusive to people's privacy and security, as well as being more beneficial and simple to use.
Healthcare Smart Contract Applications
In the field of healthcare, blockchain technology is regarded as a game-changer. Because smart-contract logic requires security and traceability, it's a good idea to encrypt a person's health records if they have personal access. The individual is in charge of keeping his personal data and has access to his private keys. Surgery, medication, and medical supplies are all examples of this.
Ethereum smart contracts are being rooted in the medical sector via Healthureum. The massive volume of existing healthcare data is rising, and storing and sharing it is becoming increasingly difficult. Data can be saved on the blockchain system with the help of Healthureum, which takes control of data and payments for healthcare services. The user pays the costs in HTH Tokens upon conducting the transaction, which is secured by smart-contract code.
The following are the advantages:
Your health information is safe and secure, and it is saved in a smart contract. The automated process can save lives and time in the event of an emergency, and it ensures complete accuracy and privacy.
Feel free to use Cryptoauxiliary to look into smart contracts in healthcare.
Smart Contracts in the World of Security
Identity and privacy are at the top of the priority list for smart contracts. In today's environment, it is essential to ensure that your personal information is not accessible or public.
When establishing a business or launching a startup, blockchain supports and preserves people's security. Numerous organisations use a simple smart-contract code to avoid negotiating agreements without the use of intermediaries or third-party services.
There are numerous businesses that can advise you on how to enhance your business using the Ethereum ecosystem in order to perform on time and avoid paying hefty costs. These services can start a brand-new project for a specific brand, paying close attention to every detail and providing round-the-clock technical assistance and smart-contract audits. The Cryptoauxiliary team will assist you in creating your own smart contract!