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A Java Framework for Smart Contracts

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Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 11599))

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Abstract

This article defines a framework for programming, in Java, smart contracts over blockchain. The framework consists of a restricted runtime and of an instrumentation procedure for classes that need to be persisted to blockchain, for payable contract methods and for gas metering. This instrumentation abstracts away any difference between storage and memory data location, which is at the origin of tricky semantical issues and bugs in Solidity. Moreover, this framework allows one to leverage, in a transparent way, existing expertise and tools from the Java world, in order to build smart contracts in a simple and comfortable way. The resulting contracts are strongly-typed and work over a shared storage, that allows simple intercontract communication. This makes it easy to install libraries or microservices in blockchain.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Takamaka is a valley in French Réunion island, where a network of waterfalls converge into a river. This is similar to Takamaka’s smart contracts, that is, distinct objects that collaborate over a shared global heap in blockchain.

  2. 2.

    The actual implementation of Takamaka allows storage objects to have fields that hold instances of type java.lang.String and java.math.BigInteger as well, but this is not explained in this article, for simplicity.

References

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  4. Java Examples for NEO. https://github.com/neo-project/examples-java

  5. NEO - An Open Network for Smart Economy. https://neo.org

  6. Package java.lang.instrument. https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/lang/instrument/package-summary.html

  7. Web3j. https://github.com/web3j/web3j

  8. Solidity Crowdfunding Example (2016–2019). https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/v0.5.4/types.html

  9. Solidity Documentation (2016–2019). https://solidity.readthedocs.io

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  17. Siegel, D.: Understanding the DAO Attack, June 2016. https://www.coindesk.com/understanding-dao-hack-journalists

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Università di Verona, Verona, Italy

    Fausto Spoto

Authors
  1. Fausto Spoto
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fausto Spoto .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stirling University, Stirling, UK

    Andrea Bracciali

  2. Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Jeremy Clark

  3. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Federico Pintore

  4. University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg

    Peter B. Rønne

  5. University of Trento, Trento, Italy

    Massimiliano Sala

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© 2020 International Financial Cryptography Association

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Spoto, F. (2020). A Java Framework for Smart Contracts. In: Bracciali, A., Clark, J., Pintore, F., Rønne, P., Sala, M. (eds) Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11599. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43725-1_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43725-1_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-43724-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-43725-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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