How to implement "Smart Contracts" in multichain?

Question

Hi,

Please guide me, as to how to create "Smart Contracts" in multichain (with or without Ethereum)?

 

Regards

Anuj Mehra

Answer 1

What a well timed question... (http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/how-are-banks-actually-going-use-blockchains-smart-contracts-1539789)

Right now MultiChain does not have a built-in smart contracts layer. But a "smart contract" is just a piece of code that runs on a blockchain, so can you tell us anything more about what you would like your smart contract to actually do?

Comments

Hi,

We are planning a solution where multiple parties will be involved, as below;
1). A bank (guarantor)
2). 2 or more customers

Customers will be involved in a deal (supplier and consumer). Consumer will remit the payment to the bank (guarantor) and bank will remit payment to the supplier from time to time on the basis of some conditions getting fulfilled.

How can we proceed with such a solution using Multichain?

Regards
Anuj

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OK, but what is the nature of these conditions, and who supplies the information for them?

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Let's take a use case:
There is a goods producer (P) and a consumer (C). Bank is the guarantor (G).

When C places order for x goods to P, P will have to make good and thus need to invest money. C won't give any upfront payment to P due to trust issue.

Both P and C trust G. So C will remit money to G and on logical conditions like; procurement of ram material , dispatch of goods by P, goods received by C, G will remit some amount of total amount to P.

We are looking for a smart contract where such conditions can be coded.

Regards
Anuj

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OK, but *who* is writing to the blockchain whether conditions such as procurement, dispatch, and goods received have happened? The blockchain cannot interrogate the outside world to know this information, so some trusted party/parties will be responsible for submitting and signing this information.

If it is the bank, they you don't need anything else - the bank can just check whether the conditions are fulfilled, and then make the payment if appropriate.

If it is some other party/parties, then you can use multisig, so the transaction needs to be signed by both the bank and this other party/parties, if the appropriate conditions are fulfilled.

For audit purposes you can still embed any information regarding procurement, dispatch, etc..., inside the blockchain, using transaction metadata.

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So we are saying that, we will have an outside system, in which bank will be having its own database, where it will maintain what all steps that have been performed (like a workflow).

And on the blockchain, we just transfer asset(s) between wallet addresses.

Then where does "Smart Contract" came into picture?

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Exactly. A "smart contract" means executing general-purpose computer code on a blockchain. MultiChain does not support this because we are waiting to understand more about the common use cases that are not covered by simpler things like multisig and transaction metadata.

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Is there a reference URL providing detail about how to use multisig with MultiChain?
I don't have idea about multisig, so not sure if we can use it for our use-case or not.

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Not yet but any reference for Bitcoin will work exactly the same on MultiChain.

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Is there any reference material available to implement Ethereum along with Multichain?

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No, not at the moment - sorry.

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So if I understand correctly - the logic operations of the transactions happens off the blockchain, for example on a validation server, and the final result of the validation initiates an action on the blockchain; this can be transferring representation of an asset, or equally just appending new state information. Did I understand that correctly?

Thanks

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No, all logic is processed on the blockchain, i.e. calculated by every node. Otherwise someone could post a false outcome.

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I have kept my business login outside the blockchain. I am currently using blockchain as persistence layer.

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Hi Anuj, that's pretty much what I'm thinking, thanks. As for the blockchain, it can be used for acceptance validation of logic before recording for persistence, no?

Thanks

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Can you give an example?