For Builders and Developers

AI Applications

Building on Conwai (with Stylus)

Building on Conwai is as straightforward as developing on Ethereum due to its EVM compatibility. This means that any code written for Ethereum can be deployed on Conwai without modifications. Developers can enjoy Conwai's benefits, such as increased speed and lower costs, while using the same tools and workflows they are already familiar with.

Popular development tools like Foundry, Hardhat, Remix, and Truffle are fully supported, allowing developers to use their existing workflows and tooling seamlessly.

Writing Smart Contracts in Rust and C++?

With the upcoming production release of Stylus, you will be able to build on Conwai using popular programming languages, such as Rust.

• Stylus allows you to write smart contracts in programming languages that compile to WASM, including Rust, C, C++, and many others.
• Comprehensive language support is already available for Rust: you can use the Stylus SDK and CLI tool to start building today.
• Stylus smart contracts benefit from Conwai's EVM equivalence through a second, equal WASM virtual machine.
• Solidity contracts and Stylus contracts are fully interoperable. In Solidity, you can call a Rust program and vice versa.
• Stylus contracts are significantly faster and have much lower gas fees due to the superior efficiency of WASM programs.
• Memory can be 100-500x cheaper when using Stylus, enabling new use cases now that consuming RAM is viable on the blockchain.

Why is this important? Stylus innovates on multiple levels, with the key ones highlighted here:

• One chain, many languages: There are roughly 20k Solidity developers, compared to 3 million Rust developers or 12 million C developers. Developers can now use their preferred programming language, all interoperable on any Arbitrum chain with Stylus. Scaling to the next billion users requires onboarding the next million developers.
• EVM+: Stylus combines the best of both worlds. Developers still benefit from the EVM ecosystem and liquidity while gaining efficiency improvements and access to existing libraries in Rust, C, and C++. This is all without changing the EVM's functionality. EVM equivalence is no longer the ceiling; it's the floor.
• Cheaper Execution: Stylus offers a more efficient execution environment than the EVM, leading to gas savings for complex smart contracts. Computation can be over 10x cheaper, and memory can be over 100x cheaper. Cryptography libraries can be deployed as custom application layer precompiles, permissionlessly. Use cases that are impractical in the EVM are now possible in Stylus.
• Opt-in Reentrancy: Stylus doesn't just improve cost and speed. WASM programs are also safer. Reentrancy is a common vulnerability that developers can only attempt to mitigate in Solidity. Stylus provides cheap reentrancy detection, and using the Rust SDK, reentrancy is disabled by default unless intentionally overridden.
• Fully Interoperable: Solidity and WASM programs are completely composable. If working in Solidity, a developer can call a Rust program or rely on another dependency in a different language. If working in Rust, all Solidity functionalities are accessible out of the box.

How does it work? There are four main steps to bring a Stylus program to life — coding, compilation, execution, and proving.

• Coding: Developers can write smart contracts in any programming language that can be compiled into WASM. Initially, support will be available for Rust, C, and C++, with extensive language support for Rust from day one. The Stylus SDK for Rust contains the smart contract development framework and language features most developers will need to use in Stylus. Check out the Rust SDK Guide and the Crate Docs.
• Activation: Stylus programs are compiled to WASM and then lowered to assembly. Starting from a high-level language, the first stage of compilation happens either using the CLI provided in the Stylus SDK for Rust or by using any other compiler. Once compiled, the WASM is posted on-chain and activated, which involves lowering it to a node's native machine code. Gas metering, depth-checking, memory charging, and more ensure all WASM programs are safe for the chain to execute.
• Execution: Stylus programs are executed in a fork of Wasmer, the leading WebAssembly runtime. EVM contracts continue to execute as before, with cross-contract calls possible between Solidity and WASM languages. This interoperability means a developer never has to consider what language the contract was written in.
• Proving: Nitro uses fraud-proving technology to conduct interactive fraud proofs on Ethereum. Stylus extends this technology to WASM programs, utilizing it to bisect over execution history and any WASM programs deployed by developers.