It appears the long awaited day is upon us.
According to a post put out by the @vsc.network team, the testnet is fully operational. This means that, for the first time, Hive has scalable smart contract that developers can create.
This was one of the major gaps in the Hive ecosystem considering the fact that many developers require these contracts for their applications. No longer will they have to move on from Hive due to this shortcoming.
Of course, things are just getting rolled out. At the moment, the team is focused upon fixing some bugs along with getting the documentation written. This is a crucial step for developers entering from the outside.
Mirroring EVMs
The idea of smart contracts suddenly brings us into the world of Ethereum and EVMs. There is little doubt of the success there, something that helped to stimulate innovation. We are moving closer to the time when Hive will be on an equal playing field in this regard.
Actually, there is one area where it is going to surpass the EVMs.
A little known secret about VSC is our smart contracts use Webassembly. To the average person, this does not mean anything. Though, what you need to know about this is that it enables development of smart contracts in any coding language. This is rather new in the smart contract ecosystem, with most smart contract blockchains being EVM based with little variety of language support. With VSC, you can develop in a variety of languages, starting with one similar to JavaScript, to Golang, and Rust in the future.
VSC is going to allow people to code in languages they know. This is a big shift compared to the EVMs, which require Solidity.
Why is this important?
There are two reasons. The first is the fact that it is more appealing when a developer can utilize what he or she already knows. This means the security lapse that come from a lack of knowledge of the language is reduced.
Secondly, there are a lot more developers to review the code. On Hive, we have developers with more than 20 years experience using certain languages. That does not exist with Solidity.
This allows Hive to enter an entirely different realm.
Here are just a few of the use cases:
The last is one of extreme interest.
Lite Accounts
One of the longstanding barriers to Hive was onboarding. VSC is one of the projects looking to solve that.
Lite accounts will allow people to engage with Hive without actually having an account. These are free to set up, eliminating another roadblock.
Without knowing how it is aLL designed, it is likely there will be limitations, hence the "lite". However, it will allow people to transact with the base layer coins, something that can truly only be done with a Hive account.
Here is what the article stated about this:
VSC has support for native FREE lite accounts, which allow for access to VSC and Hive. VSC Lite Accounts do not cost anything to create and fully self custody. There are no centralized service in-between the user and L1 assets on chain. Lite accounts are not just entries in a database somewhere, as accounts are real self-sovereign identities. The amazing part about this technology is that it can be leveraged to allow Ethereum wallets to own L1 Hive; no wrapping or bridging. This enables a Hive user to easily send Hive/HBD to and from any Ethereum address.
Here again, we see a major step forward. One of the major drawbacks to Hive is the ability the lack of on and off ramps.
This is another way to expand the reach by connecting Hive to the "outside world".
Potential Expansion
We are looking at a game changer for Hive. This completely changes the entire make up of the ecosystem.
Does this mean that Hive is ahead of everything else? No. Adding 4 tires to a vehicle does not mean one will beat Formula One cars. However, without tires, we know the vehicle isn't in the game.
Hive is now in the game.
Of course, like anything with technology, nothing operates in a vacuum. The great thing about digital networks is how things are leveraged. This development enhances everything else that is being built on Hive.
For example, developers can take advantage of the feeless nature of Hive's base layer. This could assist those building games as well as financial and social media applications.
Scalability
One of the most exciting aspects to VSC is the scalability.
When we look at how the node system is developed, we are seeing some advantages.
To start, nodes are not required to run every contract. This is a major difference compared to the EVMs. These are not base layer (to Hive). That means that node operators can select the ones they want to support.
This helps to keep nodes lightweight, allowing for greater scaling. We are seeing testing being done using a Raspberry Pi as a node.
Another scalable feature is with multi-sig. This was discussed in the past and is necessitating some code changes at the base layer. The net result is the amount of signatures signing a transaction can scale to numbers that are much larger than Ethereum. That chain end up only having a handful of signatures.
With Hive, there will be the potential of hundreds, or even thousands.
This is a major security enhancement.
In Conclusion
For many, this might not be exciting stuff. infrastructure rarely is.
That said, when dealing with new technology, which Web 3.0 is, before massive progress can be made at the application layer, infrastructure is needed. For example, the Hive Financial network, something we discussed, is not possible without the proper infrastructure in place. In fact, even a basic lending platform is impossible.
Using the automobile analogy, having the fastest sport car in the world is of no use without a road so why even build it? Once the road is in place, a Ferrari makes a lot more sense as compared to looking at open fields.
VSC is now providing much needed infrastructure.
There is still a lot of work to be done as stated in the article. We are not going to see things instantly change. Documentation is the next step along with getting front ends that people can use.
However, the network is operating while providing smart contract capabilities. Over the next couple months, it is likely that development teams start to incorporate some of these into their applications.