Key Technologies and Tools for Blockchain Development

Blockchain is a rapidly developing technology that has the potential to revolutionize many industries. Developing blockchain applications is a complex task that requires specialized knowledge and skills. However, there are several resources available to help developers.

In this review, expert Danila Sudbin, Staff Software Engineer at MoneyCat Financing Inc., discussed some key technologies and tools developers need to know for blockchain development. He also discussed the potential benefits these technologies can bring to the real world.

Choosing a framework

Frameworks are software that simplify and accelerate the development, deployment, and support of complex products by providing implementations of basic components and tools.

The choice of framework depends on the product you want to launch. The simplest examples are DeFi (decentralized finance) products and NFT collections (non-fungible tokens). For DeFi and NFTs, it is important to show/prove who owns the funds/collections, which means that the blockchain must be transparent and secure (protected from potential threats in terms of fraud). The most widely used blockchains for these purposes are built on the Ethereum platform.

Solana and Avalanche are known for their high speed and scalability. These two blockchain platforms are ideal for launching a decentralized exchange (DEX) as they provide high transaction processing speeds. For example, Solana can process up to 65,000 transactions per second, while Avalanche can process up to 4,500 transactions per second.

If you need to connect multiple blockchains, Polkadot or Cosmos is the best choice. This is often needed for financial applications (transferring funds from one platform to another) and gaming applications (transferring ownership of items to another game - part of the implementation of the metaverse concept).

When choosing a blockchain, it is also important to consider not only the product you want to develop but also the blockchain's programming language. The most popular programming languages for smart contracts are Solidity (Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain), Rust (Solana), Haskell (Cardano), JavaScript/TypeScript for smart contracts, and C++ for core development (Polkadot), as well as the Aptos blockchain with the Move programming language, which is becoming increasingly popular.

The development process

In addition to IDEs for development (Visual Studio Code, Eclipse, and IntelliJ IDEA) and extensions for them that support syntax highlighting and automatic error detection, there are also tools for interacting with smart contracts themselves - providers. web3.js (with a client-side on a web browser), Metamask, Alchemy, AlgoSigner, Infura, Moralis, QuickNode, etc., providing APIs.

Testing tools: Mocha is a modular testing framework that supports testing blockchain applications, and Chai is an assertion library that is used to verify test results. Chai provides developers with a simple and intuitive syntax for writing assertions that verify the correctness of blockchain applications and Solidity Test Suite, which provides developers with a set of tests that verify various aspects of the security and performance of smart contracts.

Monitoring tools are used to track the state of a blockchain network. Blockchain monitoring tools typically include features for collecting data on network performance, security, and usage. Some popular blockchain monitoring tools include Prometheus, Grafana, and InfluxDB.

Why does a business need this?

One of the two most important tasks that blockchain can help solve is supply chain management in the pharmaceutical industry. Improved transparency and traceability allow businesses to quickly find information and improve customer trust through openness (for example, customers care about knowing where a drug was manufactured, whether storage conditions were met, and whether it has a shelf life). In addition, supply chain management reduces the risk of counterparty fraud.

Companies are already actively adopting blockchain technology. For example, Walmart uses blockchain to track the origin of food products. This helps the company ensure food safety and increase consumer trust. Maersk uses blockchain to track shipping containers. This helps the company improve logistics efficiency and reduce costs. IBM uses blockchain to track medical supplies. This helps the company ensure medication safety and improve patient care.

I also conducted a research development in the framework of the 2023 conference "Digital User Avatar on the Blockchain", International Journal of Advance Computational Engineering and Networking (IJACEN), pp. 11-17, Volume-11, Issue-3 in February in Los Angeles, USA. In this work, I developed a Digital Avatar Framework (DAF). Letter in December I integrated it with an online store for delivering car parts. The practical application consisted of replacing the traditional supply chain management system with an innovative system developed based on the framework.

Why do users need this?

If large companies can use blockchain to increase customer trust, then ordinary users can use it similarly. Ethereum was the first company to implement smart contracts in its blockchain, and it is now actively developing its standardization to simplify the understanding of its algorithms.

For example, ERC-20 is responsible for the operation of a token (which is not a cryptocurrency, as it requires a blockchain on which it would be used), ERC-721 for NFTs, etc. In addition to these standards, there are also ERC-725 and ERC-735, which allow for the assignment of properties (reviews), adding or modifying user data such as a home address (if done by the wallet owner). All of this logic is implemented in a smart contract, as is the level of access to this data. For example, only government agencies have access to user data such as a home address.

Conclusion

Blockchain is a technology that has the potential to transform many industries. It can make systems more transparent, efficient, and secure. I believe that as blockchain technology develops, the demand for IT professionals in this field will grow. IT professionals with knowledge and skills in blockchain will be in demand in many industries.

By Danila Sudbin