Basic Theory

You may already have heard of DApps (Decentralized Apps). A smart contract can also be thought of as a DApp because it is both an application and is decentralized. In fact, DApps consist of a web-based front-end that sits on top of a smart contract. A DApp is decentralized because of the properties of the smart contract; a copy of the DApp’s smart contract is stored on each node in the blockchain.

Smart contracts can be invoked when a transaction is added to a blockchain and, according to how they are programmed, smart contracts can redistribute the funds sent in the transaction.

Note

Given a specific input, the output of the smart contract is the same no matter which node it is run on. Because of this property, smart contracts are deterministic.

Smart contracts are also capable of storing (persisting) data. If they could not do this, it would be impossible for them to achieve the required level of sophistication. You might be asking a question at this point: if a smart contract is stored on every node in the blockchain but gets run on random nodes, what happens to any data it stores when running? The answer is that any data stored by a smart contract is broadcast across all nodes on the network. A smart contract on any node has up-to-date copies of its “database”.

Note

When a new smart contract or a transaction invoking a smart contract is distributed across the network as part of a block, each node that receives the block runs the smart contract during the consensus building process. If a smart contract is found to be invalid (non-deterministic for example), the smart contract is not deployed.

Using .NET for smart contracts

The most important aspect of the implementation of Stratis smart contracts is they use “real” .NET, which is to say .NET Core is used to execute them. The Stratis Full Node is also written in C# and the route of execution for both it and and a Stratis smart contract is the same. Stratis smart contracts are not just using the C# syntax, they are using the full tried and tested C# package supplied by Microsoft.

Because smart contracts must execute deterministically, they cannot use all capabilities of the C# language or all the .NET Core libraries. The Stratis smart contracts suite includes a validation tool that checks for any non-deterministic elements in any smart contracts that you write.

Gas for Stratis smart contracts

Smart contracts require ‘gas’ to run. How much gas they need relates to how many instructions they contain. Gas is an additional expenditure to transaction fees. For example, if you send money to a smart contract, you must pay normal transaction fees and the cost in gas for any methods you call on the smart contract.

Gas is separate from STRAX. Its relationship to STRAX is defined by STRAX = GAS * gasPrice.