Using blockchain platforms in sustainability

There can be many ways of using blockchain in sustainability, including public and consortium blockchain platforms. Examples might be:

1. using consortium blockchains for supply chain modelling to aggregate environmental properties of different products, like greenhause gas emission parameters. 

2. using public tokens and public chains to encourage the P2P usage of environment friendly technologies, like green energy. 

3. Gamification badges and collectable tokens: customers could gain different kinds of a non-tradable tokens as badges for consuming and buying environment friendly resources. It is similar to standard gamification 

4. Locally tradable tokens: The gained tokens could be tradable but only in a local environment. As an example, tokens gained for consuming local “green” environmental goods could be used for purchasing other similar goods of local companies.  

5. Full scale “green” cryptocurrency: The gained motivation or gamification token could work as a cryptocurrency having the possibility to be traded against other crypto or standard currencies. 

6. “Green” markets: there could be tokens that represent directly some kind of a direct environment improvement. Examples might range from planting a tree or explicitly reducing the CO2 emission of an area in terms of a negative carbon credit. These tokens could be tradable on an open decentralized market, perhaps with standard cryptocurrencies. 

7. “Green” transaction fee: The previously mentioned possibilities could be combined with the help of a special transaction fee on either standard payment transactions or cryptocurrencies. This “green” transaction fee can be automatically and transparently redirected to activities supporting sustainability. 

  

Notes on atomic and cross-chain swaps

Atomic swaps realize cooperation between several two blockchains in the sense that a transaction on one chain can be executed if and only if another transaction is executed on another chain. 

The simplest working mechanism of such an atomic swap is the following: 

1. Let we imagine that a we want to make an integration between a P public and C consortium network in a way that a Tc transaction is executed on the C consortium network if and only if a Tp public transaction is executed on the public network. 

2. We create a random x secret value and a H(x) cryptographic hash of the random number. 

3. We create a timed hash contract or transaction in a way that the transaction is on the blockchain but it will be executed if and only if x is openly presented on the chain, usually with the help of a transaction. If the x value is not presented in a certain time period, the transaction is automatically reverted. In case of Bitcoin for instance this revert means that the cryptocurrency is efficiently transferred back from the multisig wallet to the sender. However this is not necessarily the only possible use-case. Any logic with a transaction execution and revert can be used. 

4. If x secret is presented on one system, the transaction will be executed. As in this case x secret is public, it can be used to execute to other transaction as well on the other system. 

Certainly the system might have some disadvantages that can be fine-tuned: like in non smart contract based systems, the double spending should be avoided by the algorithm and the participants should be effectively online during the swap. On top, privacy might be an issue as well. 

Solidity Tips and Tricks - security of the view modifier of a function

Solidity view function modifier means that the function do not modify the storage of the contract, due to the fact that it costs no gas to call this function. However, one might as well assume this feature as a security guarantee, meaning that the function can not modify the storage.  It is important to note however that in the 4. compiler versions there is actually no guarantee for that, the compiler gives a warning, but despite it compiles and deploys the contract without error. As an example, considering the following contracts:

pragma solidity ^0.4.24;

contract ViewImplementation {    
 uint public storageVariable = 0;
    
 function viewFunction() view external returns (uint) {
   storageVariable = 2;
   return 1;
 }
}

contract TestViewImplementation {
    
  address contractAddress =
           0xbbf289d846208c16edc8474705c748aff07732db;
    
 function testView() public {
   ViewImplementation imp =  ViewImplementation(contractAddress);
   imp.viewFunction();
 }  
}

Calling the viewFunction externally implied zero gas consumption and the storageVariable will not be modified. However, calling the function from another contractlike from testView will modifiy the storageVariable to 2.

The situation is fortunately better in the 5+ solidity versions, as there is not only warning but a compiler error as well in such a situations.  

Designing a generalized Cryptokiities style game framework on the blockchain

Cryptokitties is a genial blockchain game, however it should be extended into a more generalized framework. The collectible crypto animals should have dynamic properties as well, like they should be able to learn things and behave somehow in a more dynamic environment. Such a game might lool like as the followings:

- Users could have contactable cryptoanimals.  

- These cryptoanimals could be mutated or evolved.

- The cryptoaimals could be explicitly trained as well. 

- There could be different kinds of a matches or competitions between the cryptoanimals, like: 

   - who can navigate through on a labyrinth faster.

   - who can capture a flag on a field faster. 

   - who can  perform better in a sense on a simulated field. 

   - perhaps battles or team sports, like a version of football could also be played.

- Based on the match result, there could be some resources won that can be used for like making new mutations or training cycle for the cryptoanimal.  

Notes on the future of token standards

Next generation of token standards will define cross-chain tokens, distributing efficiently the functionality between several blockchains or perhaps having even off-chain functionality. This will extend tokenomics and token based business models in the direction of multiply blockchains, or even blockchain and off-chain solutions. From a technological point of view, there is already several initiatives for realizing such a services, like Plazma, Loom network, Polkadot or Cosmos.