Skycoin CX vs Ethereum Solidity
Two blockchain programming languages go head-to-head
Ethereum is the world’s second largest cryptocurrency platform by market capitalization. Instrumental to Ethereum’s success has been its native programing language, Solidity, which developers have used to launch countless ICOs, games and applications.
But ask yourself this. Four years after Ethereum’s launch in July 2015, what are some of the most widely adopted business applications on the platform? And what are some of the most popular games?
Can you think of any?
In fact, the top Ethereum application (based on daily active users) is IDEX, an exchange for trading ERC-20 tokens. And the top game is CryptoKitties, a digital cat trading game that enjoyed brief popularity in 2017 when it infamously caused the entire Ethereum network to grind to a halt.
As for business adoption of Ethereum applications… well, there hasn’t been any business adoption at all.
So why have Ethereum and Solidity struggled to gain a foothold in the apps/gaming industry?
It’s because Solidity is not a fully functional programming language, but rather a smart contract language. Smart contracts are simply self-executing scripts that are programmed to determine whether the terms of an agreement are met, and then take appropriate action.
That’s why the most popular use of Ethereum has been the launching of ICOs, whereby investors send ETH to a smart contract and automatically receive ERC-20 tokens for whatever project they’re investing in. Thousands of ICOs have used Ethereum smart contracts to launch their ERC-20 tokens, which drove demand for ETH and pushed up prices. But unfortunately many of these projects ended up being scams.
Solidity also suffers from a number of security vulnerabilities that resulted in the loss or theft of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ETH. These include the DAO Hack and the Parity Freeze incident.
Aside from launching ICOs, adoption of the Ethereum platform has been limited to the creation of underwhelming gambling apps, simple Ponzi-style games, and ERC-20 token trading exchanges. Mainstream success has been hamstrung by Solidity’s limited functionality, security flaws, lack of scalability, and by a dearth of developers familiar with Solidity’s unusual syntax.
You see, businesses don’t really want smart contracts. They want fully functional applications. They want databases, spreadsheets, word processors, websites, collaboration tools, productivity apps, CRM suites, development hubs, graphics packages and so on.
But you can’t build these with Solidity. Neither can you create games that could even approach the quality of those built on engines like Unreal or Unity.
And even if you could build them using Solidity, the Ethereum blockchain couldn’t handle them, because Ethereum crams every new and existing application into a single blockchain with a maximum rate of 15 transactions per second (hence the CryptoKitties fiasco).
Fortunately, there is a solution. Skycoin CX.
What is CX?
Skycoin CX is a blockchain programing language based on Google’s popular Golang. Unlike Solidity, CX is fully featured, as well as being deterministic and Turing-complete. But what do these terms mean? Let’s break it down.
Fully Featured. Essentially, this means CX can be used to develop anything that could be developed using a traditional programming language such as C++ or Golang.
Deterministic. This means a CX program, when given a particular input, will always produce the same output regardless of the machine on which it is running, or the point in time at which it is run.
Turing Complete. A language is said to be Turing complete if it can compute anything computable, or solve any solvable computational problem, given enough resources.
Another key difference between CX and Solidity is that CX can function as both a compiled and interpreted language, whereas Solidity is compiled only.
Compiled languages convert readable source code into binary code that runs on a computer. Interpreted languages send the source code to the computer, and the computer translates the code into binary at runtime. By supporting both options, CX gains the speed and memory efficiency of a compiled language, while also offering the flexibility of an interpreted language.
And because CX uses syntax very similar to Golang, there are already a multitude of experienced programmers who can quickly start developing powerful games and applications using CX. On the other hand, Solidity remains an unfamiliar language to most developers, even four years after its release.
CX also optimizes its operating environment automatically, by reclaiming unused resources and freeing up memory, whereas other languages leave it to the developer to search for unused resources. And the CX Object Explorer gives developers a high-level view of objects and memory allocation, making it easier to remove or modify objects hidden within thousands of lines of code that might result in unpredictable consequences. CX even includes integrated machine learning tools, enabling CX applications to use genetic programming to solve problems iteratively by adjusting their approach over time.
Finally, CX is infinitely faster, cheaper, more scalable and more efficient than Solidity, because CX runs on the Skycoin blockchain.
The Ethereum blockchain is limited to 15 transactions per second, with every application sharing the same blockchain, and with fees in ETH being charged for every transaction. This makes it impractical to run business applications on Ethereum. No business wants to pay fees every time it opens an application, nor can they accept the risk that their critical applications may freeze to a halt when too many people decide to play cat games.
On the Skycoin network, every application is given its own dedicated blockchain, and the number of transactions per second within each chain is theoretically infinite (depending on how much hardware the application owner wishes to dedicate to that purpose). Furthermore, there are no transaction fees on the Skycoin blockchain.
This combination of advanced features, infinite scalability and free transactions means business applications created using CX are substantially more powerful and effective than basic smart contracts built on Ethereum.
CX for Gaming
Skycoin’s CX platform is also making significant advances in the gaming world. The very first CX video game, released in 2018, was a simple Pac Man clone. This was soon followed by a Flappy Bird clone. Additional games now include Snake, Brick Breaker and Casino (Slots, Blackjack, Roulette and Dice).
But it has been the recent release of the graphics and gaming engine CXFX that has attracted the most attention in the industry. Skycoin is now the only blockchain platform with an integrated graphics engine, capable of the stunning real-time 3D imagery depicted above (and those are just early trials).
The objective of CXFX is to streamline game development by allowing developers to focus on creative design, rather than having to write the basics from scratch every time. The ultimate goal is to have a WYSIWYG game editor similar to Unity.
As developers become more familiar with CX and its range of powerful libraries, there’s no doubt we’ll soon see an influx of impressive CX games running on the Skycoin blockchain.
Conclusion
Blockchain gaming is set to grow into a multi-billion dollar market. And blockchain technology in general has the potential to reshape every industry, revolutionizing the way we do business.
But modern businesses need more than just smart contracts. They need powerful, complex real-world solutions that will integrate seamlessly into their existing technology infrastructure.
Ethereum and Solidity cannot deliver those solutions. But Skycoin CX can.
And developers within the Skycoin community are already building the first generation of games and applications using CX.
If you’re an experienced developer, or even if you’re a complete beginner who wants to get involved, then you might like to begin by reading Skycoin’s comprehensive CX programming manual.
You can also join the General Skycoin Development Group on Telegram, or the CX Game Development Group, or the CXFX Development Group. You can even join Skyfleet Academy to hone your skills.
So why not put your creativity to work. Join us today, and start building the next-generation of cutting-edge blockchain games and applications using Skycoin CX!
