Zilliqa is now “open for business” with smart contract launch

Zilliqa chalks up another milestone in its history of making big promises and then delivering on them.

Zilliqa (ZIL) has been notable among cryptocurrencies for doing exactly what it set out to do.

A few months ago, it was launching its high-throughput mainnet with the aim of being properly live in about a month – which happened.

At the time, it was also looking forward to completing its blockchain advertising supply chain tests with MindShare. That also happened, and last month it was found to have delivered a 28% efficiency improvement in a test with MindShare client PepsiCo. There were also some regulatory hurdles to be overcome before Hg Exchange, a private Zilliqa-powered institutional exchange, could launch, but now it's up and running.

And then, today, it ticked another huge item off its list with the release of Scilla.

"Today is yet another milestone for us," said Zilliqa president Amrit Kumar. "It is one that shows the world that we have developed the technology we envisioned two years ago, and now, we are open for business. Long awaited by many members of our community, today signifies a pivotal step forward in realising innovations on existing blockchain infrastructures in the industry today."

Scilla

Scilla, or Smart Contract Intermediate-Level Language to use its full name, is a smart contract programming language built for Zilliqa, although it is blockchain agnostic and can be used with any blockchain.

First and foremost, it's designed to be safe. The idea is that with Scilla it won't even be possible to create vulnerable smart contracts unless you really, really want to.

Essentially, it lets developers build smart contracts block by block, where each block is a different type of function. Those building blocks need to be deliberately clicked in place, at which point it's clear how they connect and impact each other. This is in contrast to Ethereum smart contracts, which are more like a knotted ball of yarn where everything is connected to itself in some difficult to understand way.

At the same time, Scilla is designed to be amenable to formal verification and comes with a static analyzers suite for detecting bugs and issues in the contract. The idea is to make smart contracts real-world ready in a way that Ethereum's Solidity programming language never could.

"2019 was always going to be the year of realisation for Zilliqa," Kumar said. "The year that we'd be seeing so much of our hard work come into fruition, the year that so many of our hopes and dreams would come true and the year that we would be bringing more meaningful blockchain-enabled applications into the world. Six months on since the launch of our mainnet, we’ve shown that there is more to the industry than a 'blockchain for the sake of blockchain' approach to implementation. We’re proud to reflect on our progress to date and are excited for the many other developments to come."

What are some of those developments?

The most hotly anticipated might be a still-mysterious partnership that will bring Zilliqa into the payments arena.

"With an exciting new partnership in the pipeline, Zilliqa will soon be entering the payments landscape to drive efficiencies in cost, transparency and security for both clients and end users," Kumar explained.

With most other cryptocurrencies it would be easy to dismiss rumours of an upcoming partnership as marketing hot air. But Zilliqa has an impeccable track record of making big promises and then delivering on them right down to the letter.

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Disclosure: The author holds BNB and ZIL at the time of writing.

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