AiB seeks to help grow web3 in a sustainable way and onboard the next wave of people to this borderless, permissionless technology. To do that, we need infrastructure that is more accessible and intuitive and spurs greater adoption. One of the projects we’re working on to achieve this goal is Gno.land, the next generation of smart contract platforms that uses the Gnolang (Gno) programming language.
Gno is an interpretation of the widely-used Go language that makes writing smart contracts and other blockchain applications much more accessible (particularly to existing web2 developers). Gno.land also addresses multiple issues in the current blockchain space — in particular, the ease of use and intuitiveness of smart contract programming platforms. Gno.land is designed to lower the barrier to entry to web3 and make writing smart contracts simple for developers. In fact, any developer already familiar with Go can start building easily with Gno without having to learn an entirely new programming language.
A Closer Look at Gno.land and Gno
The main language that’s currently used for creating smart contracts is Solidity, which is designed for one purpose only (writing smart contracts). This means that developers who want to build their applications in web3 must learn a language that is exclusive to a single ecosystem and limited by design. Not only does this throw up a barrier for developers, but it restricts their growth: Solidity lacks the completeness of a general-purpose language like Go.
For more web2 developers to join us in building web3, we need technological solutions designed for blockchain with programming languages that are universally adopted, secure, composable, and complete. Go is a well-designed complete programming language that has its foundation based on composable structures. That’s important because composable structures allow developers to accelerate their application development and adopt a modular structure by reusing and reassembling existing modules without having to build from scratch.
Go’s language specification is simple and successfully balances practicality and minimalism while supporting secure programming that helps developers to avoid mistakes and write secure code. Go is easier to learn than most languages and can be used to program almost anything, such as GoEthereum or Tendermint.
We strongly believe that Gno will become the new gold standard for smart contract development (and other blockchain applications) because Gno inherits all the advantages of Go. Today, Gno.land is the only blockchain instance that supports Gno but we believe that there will be many chains with different names and use cases. Gno.land will be one of many chains powered by Gnolang, serving as a reference point for future implementations.
Durable Solutions That Stand the Test of Time
Gno.land’s code is designed to endure, taking inspiration from the gospels, which built a system of moral code that lasted for thousands of years. We want Gno.land to achieve the same and act as a basis to educate and elevate people’s understanding of blockchains (and the world, in general). We live in a regime of information censorship today in which we are constantly misled about major issues that affect the world – from the climate crisis to the COVID-19 pandemic – it’s a vast coordinated effort to prevent us from understanding the truth. As well as being durable, we aim for Gno.land to become a platform that allows people to collaborate to challenge the status quo and break the wall of censorship to achieve functional democracies.
Gno.land’s Current Phase of Development
Gno.land is currently in building mode and is running the first phase of Game of Realms, an open incentivized competition to find the best contributors to the Gno.land platform. Gno.land is slated to reach mainnet later in 2023 as a collaborative project that rewards those who contribute to it. If you want to learn more about Game of Realms, Gno.land, Gnolang, or anything else, head over to the official Gno.land website here.