Protocon, a web 3.0-based Layer 1 blockchain development project, announced a yellowpaper related to “Contract Model,” an alternative technology to smart contracts, on the March 31st.
Smart contract is a technology that was first proposed by Nick Szabo in 1996 and realized in Ethereum and is a representative methodology for developing blockchain applications.
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Ethereum’s smart contract is a technology that combines virtual machines with blockchain to enable programming for general purposes, and almost all mainnets now adopt this method.
It is no exaggeration to say that DeFi and NFT were able to become popular due to smart contracts. However, smart contracts are causing various kinds of accidents, such as the Ethereum Dao hacking, the DeFi hacking, and Solana’s Wormhole hacking incident that took place recently. In particular, the multi-billion-dollar DeFi and NFT markets have recently been managed by smart contracts, which ironically raises concern about the vulnerabilities of smart contracts.
Improving the weakness of smart contracts has been a main topic of discussion in the blockchain industry for a long time.
The Contract Model proposed by Protocon is the introduction of Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE), which is being applied to the development of systems that require high reliability and security, such as aircraft and military weapons, to the blockchain industry. Model-based development methodology is a theory where unit models are developed firmly and safely and combined like Lego to create a complex structure.
The Contract Model developed by Protocon is basically composed of a Unit Contract Model and a Composite Contract Model.
The Unit Contract Model is a unit program that provides simple functionality and ensures a high level of performance and safety because it is distributed over the network by a consensus of nodes after strict performance and security testing.
The Unit Contract Model consists of three sets and three functions. The three sets represent the input, output, and state of the model, and the three functions represent the input transform function, state transition function, and output function (, , ), respectively.
The Unit Contract Model can operate as an independent function by itself and is also used as a component of the Composite Contract Model.
Structure of Unit Contract Model (Reference: Protocon Yellowpaper Part. 1)
A Composite Contract Model is created by combining the Unit Contract Model registered in the network. For example, when implementing NFTs as loan collateral, the three Unit Contract Models; NFT, Collateral, and Loan are combined to provide new services. This also provides a significant level of performance and safety because it consists of codes that have already met performance and security standards.
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The technical differences between the Contract Model and the smart contract are as follows.
First, performance and security are guaranteed because a Composite Contract Model can be easily structured by configuring a Unit Contract Model that has been verified in advance.
In addition, new contracts can be formed by combining these verified models after various Unit Contract Models are developed for each purpose, so that blockchain application functions can be developed comprehensively with GUI tools without complicated programming processes in the future.
Furthermore, smart contracts are stored in multiple blocks and executed individually for each project, but contracts with the same function in the Contract Model are called in one unit model without repetition, enabling efficient use of all computing resources.
Second, it has excellent performance with the baremetal computing structure that does not use a virtual machine.
In general, virtual machines run programs on an emulator by placing another OS on top of the OS, so the performance and processing speed are significantly reduced. On the other hand, since the Contract Model operates directly on the OS, the program structure is simple, and the processing performance of the hardware can be utilized 100%. This enables environmentally friendly network operation while processing more data with fewer resources.
Third, it is programming language independent. Most blockchains use individual programming languages, such as Ethereum with Solidity, Solana with Rust and Cardano with Haskell. However, it takes a considerable amount of time for developers to become familiar enough to consider all the security aspects of a particular programming language, so human errors are quite likely to occur in the process when using an unfamiliar language. However, in the Contract Model, only the specification of the Unit Contract Model needs to be applied accordingly, so it can be developed independently without additional learning of a specific development language.
In other words, a new Contract Model can be created by developing it in the language the programmer is most familiar with. Therefore, the Contract Model provides more stable and reliable smart contract functions, including all functions supported by smart contracts.
The Protocon team has already implemented and tested the majority of the functions using blockchain such as token model, NFT model, data model, and DID model with the methodology of Contract Model, and is currently operating a testnet to conduct verification and improvement work.
Protocon is short for Protocol Economy Network, a blockchain project to build Web 3.0 infrastructure technology. The mainnet has been developed since 2019 and is scheduled to officially operate in August this year. The yellowpaper part 1 is the first result of the technological innovation pursued by the Protocon team, and the team will subsequently unveil yellowpaper part 2 related to facthash technology, which dramatically improves cross-chain related performance and safety by improving data verification between heterogeneous networks.
