Bugs discovered in #Ethereum, what’s next?

Bugs discovered in #Ethereum, again and again, this is what we see in the headlines for most #blockchain or #cryptocurrency headlines.

As the articles are released to the public, mostly there will be FUD and sometimes denial.However this has been a significant sign to mark the importance of Modularization in Blockchain!

Recently, there is a discovery of vital bugs that impact on the overall ecosystem of #cryptocurrency. Exchanges including Okex, Poloniex, Coinone, and Hitbtc today suspended deposits of ERC20 tokens following the discovery of a batch overflow bug written into the smart contracts governing numerous coins.

By exploiting the bug, attackers can generate an extremely large amount of tokens, and deposit them into a normal address. This makes many of the ERC-20 tokens vulnerable to price manipulations of the attackers. To protect the public interest, we have decided to suspend the deposits of all ERC-20 tokens until the bug is fixed. Also, we have contacted the affected token teams to conduct an investigation and take necessary measures to prevent the attack.

— Cited by OKEX

Though many are saying that this is a newly discovered bug, Hackers can affect the total supply of ERC20 tokens with this fatal carelessness. Nowadays, according to research, 30,000+ smart contracts have potential risks.

Notable names include: MESH, UGToken, SMT, SMART, MTC, FirstCoin and more

While this is not the first time that people have come across bugs in Ethereum-based smart contracts.

Does this mean that any ERC20 token is in danger?

Not necessarily. The overflow bug is mainly caused by inexperienced developers when constructing smart contracts.

It is an attack that is known for a long time, yet experienced developers are not familiar with. Batch overflow is a common issue which occurs when computers deal with numeric values outside of the range that can be represented with a given number of bits.

Even the leaders in this space, for example, Coinbase has faced familiar issues when they technically allowed users to reward themselves with practically endless amounts of Ether.

While many believe that it is the fault of inexperienced developers or even the fault in the Ethereum protocol itself. It is actually the nature of building applications starting from the protocol level that has caused these potentially harmful scenarios.

Businesses and Blockchain Startups have paid a fortune into fixing a fundamental issue, they have tried to look for qualified developers in order for them to build a stable foundation for further applications but to no avail.

These incidents have shown that why modularization is so important especially in the blockchain space. Before we jump into depth, let’s talk about smart contracts.

A smart contract can be, and only will be as smart as its developer. However smart contract developers aren’t supercomputers who can be attentive to or concerned with even the smallest details. However, it is vital for them to do so as any imperfections in their smart contracts may lead to hacks, frozen funds.

With modularization, frameworks are made for developers to follow, it makes code reusable. By modularizing, we can replace parts of the code easily.If we have broken down the solution into parts that make logical sense, other programmers can follow the logic or framework that has been recreated, they can recreate the structure of the parts in their heads. Then and only then they can take each part of the modules and jump into details.

While some may not agree with the solution, but at least by breaking down the problem, modules have made it easier for a developer to understand and maintain their code.

For example, business applications empowered by FundersToken Engine have none of these problems. As FundersToken has taken care of all technical issues and put all solutions into bug-free modules, we make it understandable and logical. So our clients can understand the value of it and what not to do within our framework, they can focus their energy on thinking what their token can really be used in their actual business and operations.

Modularization within the blockchain space is not just cost-efficient, but a strategic, cost-optimization initiative that companies must take to provide a bug-free environment, optimize development cost to improve market value in a way that preserves quality, increase security and lowers development, production and servicing costs.

And that’s the aim of FundersToken and the value that we wish to bring to the #blockchain space.

Originally published at www.fstk.io on May 7, 2018.