Secure smart contract platform for the multi-chain world

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Why is security important?

Prevent almost all known risk vectors of Ethereum

Look at all the DeFi hackings that happened before, which we have not seen so far with CosmWasm.

Key points

Deeply integrated in many Cosmos blockchains
Native support for powerful IBC communication
Uses highly optimized Web Assembly runtime
Type-safe development and powerful testing with Rust
Compatible with many Rust libraries (i.g. decimal math)
Welcoming (and diverse) dev community

Compare to Solidity

Security

CosmWasm aims to address many of the security issues present in Ethereum/Solidity.

It does this by preventing reentrancy attacks, a common exploit in the DeFi world. It also provides a more streamlined experience for migrating contracts, as opposed to using a “proxy contract” pattern. And it removes many language elements which tended to be misused (like tx.origin for security).

Overall, CosmWasm provides a highly secure foundation for smart contracts on the Cosmos ecosystem by preventing the most common classes of attacks found in Solidity.

Testing

Unit testing in Solidity can be challenging due to the unique characteristics of the Ethereum virtual machine and the Solidity programming language. However, CosmWasm makes testing more accessible by making it a first-class citizen from the start.

It provides support for multiple levels of testing, including unit, integration, and full-stack tests. This allows developers to test their critical business logic more comprehensively and effectively, and improve their smart contracts’ overall reliability and security.

CosmWasm also makes it easy to provide solid coverage of the business logic, which is a crucial aspect of ensuring the reliability and security of smart contracts.

Performance

CosmWasm is designed to handle high transaction throughput, and can quickly process several hundred transactions per second. This allows for faster and more efficient execution of smart contract operations, particularly useful in high-demand use cases.

Additionally, CosmWasm is deployed on multiple, connected chains, which helps to split the load and keep costs low. By spreading the load across multiple chains, CosmWasm can reduce the strain on any single chain, which helps to keep costs down and improve the overall scalability of the platform. This benefits developers and users, allowing for more efficient and cost-effective execution of smart contract operations.

Composability

CosmWasm provides the ability to compose smart contracts, similar to Ethereum, but with additional architectural support to make it safer and more secure. This support allows developers to build complex compositions of smart contracts, like the Mars Protocol. This protocol enables the creation of customizable, composable, and reusable smart contract templates that can be used to build more complex and sophisticated applications.

The added safety and security features in CosmWasm help to mitigate the risk of errors and vulnerabilities in these complex compositions, making it a more reliable platform for building and deploying these kinds of applications.

Flexibility

In Ethereum, there is no method to compose across multiple chains or migrate a project to another blockchain. However, building upon the Cosmos SDK and IBC, CosmWasm provides such power.

If your project becomes too large and you want to move to your own sovereign chain, you can quickly launch a new CosmWasm chain with IBC baked in. You can then iterate on new multi-chain protocols as CosmWasm contracts allow users to opt-in to your new chain, while still maintaining a first class connection to protocols on the original chain.

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