Blockchain innovation hub Astar Network is launching Swanky, an all-in-one tool for smart contract developers that bridges the elements of WebAssembly (WASM) ecosystem into a single interface.
Astar Network’s Head of Ecosystem Development Maarten Henskens and Swanky Product Lead Sasa Pul unveiled it at the Sub0 Polkadot Developer Conference in Lisbon on Nov.28th.
When it comes to smart contracts, Astar Network supports both the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and WebAssembly (WASM) smart contract environments. While the original EVM smart contracts enjoys wide support and adoption, WebAssembly is an emerging standard that promises higher performance and has great support in the Polkadot space.
WASM is a standard for web browsers developed by the W3C working group that includes top-tier companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla. It expands the languages available to smart contract developers to include Rust, C/C++, C#, Typescript, Haxe, and Kotlin. That is, developers can code smart contracts in any language they are familiar with.
The newly-launched Swanky toolkit will allow developers to write, compile, deploy, and test WASM smart contracts with ease. It will help expand the WASM smart contract developer community and accelerate the pace of innovation in the Web3 ecosystem.
Swanky toolkit has two parts: Swanky CLI and Swanky Node.
Swanky CLI
A tool that not only writes and compiles smart contracts, but also runs critical unit testing and handle account management. Swanky CLI provides developers with access to a growing number of project templates. Instead of writing entirely new smart contracts from scratch, devs can quickly jump into building and deploying their project.
Swanky Node
Swanky Node is streamlined for local development–a simple Substrate-based blockchain that enables pallet-contracts. Yet, the tool is very flexible, and can be configured to run in different states, access pallets of substrate-based dApp development, and other features. The tool is also forward thinking and enables developers working in different parachains to load their node with preconfigured pallets and chain extensions. Builders from all networks can work in their ecosystem.
Maarten Henskens, Head of Ecosystem Development at Astar Network, comments: “With WASM smart contract usage and building still at a very early stage, tooling and documentation are essential to bootstrap the WASM developer activity. Swanky makes it incredibly easy for developers, especially those coming from Web2 to Web3, to start exploring this new environment.”
Astar Network is a Japanese-based bridge connecting layer-1 blockchains like Ethereum and Cosmos with the Polkadot ecosystem. It was recently voted the most popular blockchain in the country by the Japanese Blockchain Association.
