Human history is one of change, as philosophy, religion, politics, culture, and technology have constantly redefined how we interact with the world. Today, this change is faster than ever before thanks to exponential technological growth and global interconnectedness. The rise of Web3 stands as one of the next significant leaps in this journey, creating a pressing need for a new breed of visionaries: blockchain developers.
While the web3 market was estimated to be worth "only" around $2.2 billion, this is expected to grow to well over $81.9 billion by 2032. Unfortunately, despite there being an estimated 25 million developers in the world back in 2022, most reports indicate that there are fewer than 100,000 web3 developers at this time. This challenge has resulted in tech giants like Amazon making significant efforts to attract new developers to web3 by offering workshops, training, and grants, all of which have proven unsuccessful thus far.
Radix DLT, a blockchain started by British entrepreneur Dan Hughes, is taking a radically different approach to solving this problem. By creating a programming language centered around assets, Radix seeks to make it easier for developers of all levels to start their web3 journey.
Known as Scrypto, Radix's Rust-based language might very well be the first operational asset-oriented programming language out there. Scrypto is where developers craft smart contract blueprints and components within the growing Radix ecosystem. Unlike widely used languages like Solidity, which struggles with low developer productivity and frequent hacks and exploits (totalling billions of dollars), Scrypto emerges as a game-changer.
Scrypto is built on the foundation of Rust, a language renowned for its robust security and high performance. Scrypto has built-in safeguards to govern the security and behavior of assets, such as tokens and NFTs, providing a shield against common vulnerabilities and errors, enhancing the overall integrity of decentralized applications developed with Scrypto.
With tokens and NFTs as native features of the programming environment, this significantly boosts developer productivity as they no longer have to program the laws of finance, and how assets should behave, themselves. The environment gives them assets and asset security for free. Not only does this provide a productivity boost, but it also lessens the chances for hacks and exploits as the programming environment guarantees that assets can't just be plucked from someone's account, which is the case if a Solidity developer makes even just one small mistake in their token smart contract logic.
With DeFi also being at the heart of Radix's vision, Radix's approach to DeFi development also introduces a novel separation between asset and business logic by having the former handled by its virtual machine and the latter by the smart contract. This strategic division offers greater granularity without overwhelming developers with unnecessary complexity. A notable consequence of this separation is the reduction in the occurrence of mistakes leading to DeFi hacks in networks like Ethereum, Polkadot, Cosmos, Aptos, and Cardano.
Beyond security and performance enhancements, Scrypto also transforms the very act of DeFi development. Developers using Scrypto also find that their applications are much more streamlined and upgradeable in the long term. This is evident when comparing the code of an "automated market maker" with functionality equivalent to Uniswap v2. Such an AMM would require around 800 lines of code using Solidity but only 150 if using Scrypto.
In an era where DeFi and web3 are rising to prominence with their promise of a truly fair, accessible, stable, and autonomous financial system/internet, the onboarding of developers to the blockchain realm is no longer an option but a necessity. By providing developers with a secure and user-friendly language designed to serve their needs, Radix is paving the way for web3-capable developers to become the new normal.
