AppLayer’s OrbiterSDK-cpp v0.2.0 Unveils Game-Changing Enhancements for DeFi and GameFi
We are excited to present OrbiterSDK-cpp v0.2.0 — a major milestone on our journey at AppLayer Labs, as we build AppLayer, our meta-network renowned for its superb network speed (of up to 400k TPS), scalability, composability, language-agnosticism and cross-chain bridging.
This groundbreaking update comes after our OrbiterSDK 0.1.0 update and not only doubles the contract execution speed but also introduces an array of new features and substantial upgrades, setting a new standard for blockchain development. Below is a detailed list of the most significant enhancements and what they mean for developers:
1. SDKTestSuite
OrbiterSDK now integrates its own testing suite, revolutionizing how developers test contracts. This suite offers a straightforward, user-friendly interface, akin to Hardhat or Truffle from EVM, streamlining your testing process like never before.
For DeFi Developers: The SDKTestSuite enables more rigorous and efficient testing of complex financial instruments. DeFi developers can now explore multiple possibilities in the execution of non-conventional smart contract logic meant to enhance the individual and combined functionality of lending protocols, liquidity pools, yield farming tools and more.
They can go beyond analyzing performance and understand the implications of changing the structure and operation of DeFi back-ends, like how various elements are created, stored, queried, retrieved, referenced, updated and transferred.
Ultimately, this enables developers to identify which areas are most likely to breed vulnerabilities and failures or present opportunities for delivering leaner, lighter and faster DeFi user experiences.
For GameFi Developers: This suite allows rapid prototyping and testing of various tokenomics models, enabling developers to realize gaming ecosystems where the lucrativeness of participating is continuously harmonized with the enjoyment derived from playing the game. GameFi developers can iteratively refine player rewards systems, NFT interactions, and marketplace dynamics, ensuring a balanced and engaging player economy.
Aside from offering a fun game that makes participants money, developers can utilize the SDKTestSuite to test-drive features like avatar customization, chatrooms, user libraries, archiving and live streaming. These can enhance the way an individual interacts with the game world and manages their account while enhancing the social aspect of GameFi.
2. Full Events Support for Contracts
Elevate your dApps to new heights with the ability to effortlessly emit and listen to events from your contracts. Compatible with any web3 frontend library, such as ethers.js or web3.js, this feature promises a seamless integration into your existing workflow.
For DeFi Developers: Event support is crucial for creating transparent and traceable DeFi applications. From a broader technical standpoint, event support enables developers to examine the resultant events associated with specific transaction calls.
Subsequently, they can use event subscription to map out these flows and develop methods for real-time detection of suspicious transaction activity that could compromise normal smart contract operations (sidestepping rules, reverting to non-appropriate alternatives, unwarranted repetitions, etc.).
This can help prevent attempts to take advantage of loopholes in normal operational rules to induce liquidity pool imbalances or manipulate flash loan mechanisms. Event support paves the way for live tracking of transactions and contract interactions, essential for audit trails, compliance monitoring and user notifications in DeFi apps.
For GameFi Developers: In GameFi, event support is particularly important for getting insights such as which categories of players/dApp users are most likely to initiate transaction calls associated with specific events.
Retrieving events can guide developers in decisions like creating features that offer alternative processing routes for users whose transaction calls consistently induce certain declared events. These routes may be set up to reduce gas fees or time-to-finality, update eligibility status of an address, administer bonuses and more.
3. Safe Tuple
Introducing the versatility of struct/tuple usage within your contracts. Now, store a myriad of values under a single variable, optimizing both space and efficiency.
For DeFi Developers: The utilization of tuples allows for more simplified data aggregation, critical in DeFi for handling complex financial data sets, like bundled asset information or multi-faceted transaction details.
For GameFi Developers: Game developers can leverage tuples to smoothly manage diverse in-game assets and player attributes, leading to optimized storage and streamlined data retrieval, thereby maintaining high game performance.
4. ABI Refactor to Templates
We’ve overhauled the ABI, now utilizing templates for a more elegant syntax and enhanced performance. This refinement promises a smoother development experience.
For DeFi Developers: The switch to templates makes it easier for developers to take smaller DeFi feature additions or refinements from the idea phase to EVM-friendly bytecode. Developers can rely on pre-provided tools to build modules that easily and clearly specify to the EVM how certain elements of a DeFi app like slippage in DEX trades should work.
Consequently, there’s a lower chance of an error during the translation of a method call and related arguments into call data during the exchange between a frontend library and a node. Additionally, developers can further enable end users to receive coherent and accurate confirmation of the transactions they carry out, thanks to effective ABI decoding.
For GameFi Developers: Enhanced ABI performance means quicker interactions between in-game assets and the underlying blockchain, providing a more responsive gaming experience. Basically, developers can rely on neatly packaged syntax pieces to deliver more elaborate GameFi transactions such as using a combination of fungible tokens and in-game collectibles as submissions to tournament pots.
5. Full Tuple/Struct Support for Contracts
Say goodbye to the limitations of previous versions. OrbiterSDK now fully supports recursive usage of tuples and structs as parameters and return types in your contract functions, bypassing the need for manual ABI encoding with BytesEncoded (now deprecated).
For DeFi Developers: Thanks to recursive usage, developers have an easier time creating contract functions. For functions that would partially utilize existing parameters and return types, developers can focus more on aspects of the function that need fresh definition of data types.
Essentially, some functions will be built faster since some of their input and output types already exist. This capability allows for more sophisticated financial instruments that can handle multiple parameters, which helps in advanced DeFi protocols that offer multi-layered/multi-phase transactions.
For GameFi Developers: Full support for tuples and structs enables more complex in-game items and character attributes to be managed on-chain, allowing for richer and more intricate game scenarios. Recursive tuple and struct usage allows developers to easily add onto gaming capabilities.
For example, in a gaming ecosystem with multiple sub-metaverses or gaming worlds, if previously, gamers could only exchange collectibles from the same game world, you can easily create functions that facilitate exchanging collectibles from different sub-metaverses/game worlds since there are less manual definitions needed.
6. Genesis in Options
Customize your chain’s inception with ease. The settings file now includes options for setting the chain’s genesis state — from the genesis block to initial validators, chain ownership, and starting balances.
For DeFi Developers: Customizable genesis options mean DeFi platforms with their own base layers can have unique financial models and regulatory requirements from the get-go to maximize initial adoption while remaining compliant.
For GameFi Developers: Game developers can set launching conditions tailored to their game’s universe, such as pre-distributing in-game assets, establishing a solid foundation for the game’s on-chain ecosystem.
7. Support for All uint Types
Our platform now supports a wider range of uint*_t and int*_t types in contracts, expanding beyond the previously available uint256_t and int256_t.
For DeFi Developers: This expanded support enables more accurate and efficient financial calculations, particularly for protocols that require high-precision arithmetic for interest rates or risk assessment.
For GameFi Developers: Game developers can optimize data storage and processing by choosing the most appropriate uint type for each application, leading to better resource management and potentially smoother gameplay experiences.
8. Support for Enum on ABI
We’ve now incorporated support for enum types in the ABI, enabling you to define and utilize enums in your contract’s function parameters and return types, broadening the scope of your contract’s functionality.
For DeFi Developers: Enums can enhance the clarity of smart contracts, especially in complex protocols. They can represent states in a loan process or categorize types of financial instruments, making the code more readable and reducing the risk of errors.
For GameFi Developers: Enums can be used to categorize in-game items, character states, or quest stages, enhancing the logic and structure of the game’s blockchain interactions.
9. Better Organization for Contract Template Files
The contract template files have been reorganized for enhanced clarity and accessibility. All templates are now conveniently located in the contract/templates folder.
For DeFi Developers: The reorganization provides an easier navigation path for developers. This can speed up the development process, especially when working on multiple DeFi projects or updating existing protocols.
For GameFi Developers: Game developers can quickly identify and modify relevant templates, accelerating the development of new game features or the integration of blockchain elements into existing games.
10. ERC721 Template
Introducing a new ERC721 contract template within our contract templates, facilitating the creation of your own NFTs with ease and efficiency.
For DeFi Developers: While primarily a GameFi feature, DeFi protocols can utilize NFTs for unique financial products like tokenized real-world assets, collateralization, or as part of loyalty programs.
For GameFi Developers: This template simplifies the creation of in-game NFTs, enabling developers to easily integrate unique assets like collectibles, land, or special abilities, enhancing the gaming experience and creating new revenue streams.
11. Hash Cache on Transactions
Transactions now feature a hash cache, significantly speeding up access to the transaction hash and optimizing overall transaction processing.
For DeFi Developers: The hash cache speeds up transaction processing, supporting high-frequency trading platforms, or DeFi protocols requiring real-time transaction data for accurate decision-making.
For GameFi Developers: Faster transaction processing means quicker in-game purchases, asset transfers, and reward distributions, contributing to a more engaging and snappy player experience.
12. General Updates — Bug Fixes and Performance Enhancements
In addition to these major updates, we’ve implemented numerous bug fixes and performance enhancements.
For DeFi Developers: These general enhancements mean a more stable and reliable platform for DeFi applications. Reduced bugs and improved performance translate into smoother, more secure transactions and a more trustworthy environment for users engaging in financial activities like trading, staking, or lending.
For GameFi Developers: For GameFi, these updates equate to a more seamless gaming experience. Reduced bugs mean fewer gameplay interruptions and better integration of blockchain elements into games, leading to improved player satisfaction and engagement.
For a comprehensive list of all changes please check the changelog on our Github. Below, we reiterate some of the major accomplishments in this new update:
SDKTestSuite
For DeFi Developers: The SDKTestSuite mirrors tools like Hardhat, allowing for easier, more efficient contract testing. This is especially crucial in DeFi, where a small bug can lead to significant financial losses. DeFi developers can now thoroughly test smart contracts, ensuring robustness and reliability.
For GameFi Developers: For GameFi, this suite means streamlined testing of in-game economic models and token mechanics. Developers can validate complex game interactions and smart contract integrations more effectively, reducing the time from development to deployment.
Full Solidity Feature Parity
For DeFi Developers: Achieving full Solidity feature parity, including events, allows DeFi developers to migrate existing Ethereum-based applications to AppLayer with minimal friction. It opens up opportunities for more complex financial products that were previously constrained by platform limitations.
For GameFi Developers: For GameFi, this parity means more detailed and interactive game designs are possible. Developers can create richer in-game economies and interactions, previously limited by the constraints of other platforms.
ABI Refactor for 2x Faster Performance:
For DeFi Developers: The ABI refactor leading to 2x faster performance is a game-changer for DeFi applications. It means quicker transaction processing, more responsive user interfaces, and the ability to handle higher volumes of transactions, which is vital for trading platforms and automated market makers.
For GameFi Developers: In GameFi, this increased performance translates into faster in-game transactions and smoother gameplay. Players can experience real-time updates for in-game assets and quicker responses during game actions, enhancing the overall gaming experience.
Conclusion: A New Horizon for Ethereum Developers
The release of AppLayer’s OrbiterSDK-cpp v0.2.0 is not just an update; it’s a transformation in blockchain technology. With features like SDKTestSuite, full Solidity feature parity, and an ABI that delivers unparalleled performance, AppLayer is inviting Ethereum developers to a world where they can build anything with ease, speed, and efficiency.
These enhancements bring AppLayer’s OrbiterSDK on par with Ethereum, offering DeFi and GameFi developers a more powerful, efficient, and flexible environment for blockchain application development. The advanced features provide deeper and more nuanced capabilities, opening up new possibilities in both sectors.
Stay tuned for more updates and dive into the detailed changelog for a comprehensive overview of all the enhancements. Welcome to the future of blockchain development with AppLayer.
About AppLayer:
AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.
If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: https://forms.gle/YYs6B11ynxQZKPok8
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