xrpl.bz
A significant milestone has been reached in the blockchain world as the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) unveiled the integration of its Soroban smart contract platform with Futurenet. This development was revealed during the Stellar Meridian Event 2022 and comes with a promise of substantial financial backing for developers adopting the Soroban platform.
Soroban: Enabling Turing-Complete Smart Contracts
Soroban, built on Rust and WebAssembly (WASM), introduces Turing-complete smart contracts to the Stellar network. WASM, short for WebAssembly, is a binary instruction format for stack-based virtual machines. This high-performance platform aims to enhance access to high-quality financial services while introducing a new dimension to smart contract execution.
Innovating the Smart Contract Landscape
Tomer Weller, the lead developer of Soroban and Vice President of Technical Strategy at SDF, emphasized that Soroban's creation stemmed from the need for a smart contract platform with specific features. Additionally, Soroban addresses challenges encountered in other networks, making it a vital addition to the blockchain ecosystem.
Empowering Developers with Inclusive Access
Soroban offers developers an inclusive experience, facilitating secure access to financial rails and scalability within the Stellar network. This expansion into Futurenet allows developers to write and deploy smart contracts in a test environment while earning rewards for their contributions.
Supporting Developer Projects
The Soroban implementation initiative includes a commitment from SDF to support developer projects within the Soroban network with a staggering $100 million in funding. The ecosystem already boasts its first rewards program, “Sorobanathon: First Light,” designed to reward eligible developers who test Soroban and share feedback using Soroban-developed content, including code examples and GitHub guides.
Attracting Top Developers
The SDF hopes that its Soroban adoption initiative and other reward programs will attract top-tier developers to the blockchain space. The global shortage of software engineers necessitates efforts to meet the growing demand for Web3 developers.
Jed McCaleb, Chief Architect, and Co-founder of SDF, expressed optimism about Soroban's potential. He stated that initial users could utilize this Futurenet release to provide real-time feedback, thus shaping innovations within Stellar and setting new standards for smart contracts.
Soroban has been operational since March 2022 when SDF announced its goal to bring Turing-complete smart contracts to the Stellar network. SDF regards Soroban as a pivotal component of its technical roadmap, creating a conducive environment for developer innovation within the Stellar network.
The Futurenet release is expected to receive regular updates, with the next one scheduled for early Q1 2023. According to the foundation's timeline, the mainnet launch of Soroban is slated for June 2023, marking an exciting chapter in the evolution of smart contracts on the Stellar network.
