Firmo Looks To Create Secure Financial Trade On The Blockchain
Cryptocurrency has come a long way since the Bitcoin genesis block which introduced the world to blockchain technology. The concept of Blockchain is astounding, however, the phase we are in is experimental, and we are currently still in the infancy of the blockchain revolution.
Slowly but surely some of the finest minds have begun to take note and experts in tech, finance and marketing have come together to improve blockchain. One of those improvements was the Smart contract protocal which was made popular by Ethereum.
What is a Smart contract?
A smart contract is a fancy term for a self-executing deal with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller which is directly written into lines of code. The code and the agreements contained in the contract are hosted across a distributed, decentralized blockchain network like Ethereum.
Smart contracts permit trusted transactions and agreements to be carried out among disparate, anonymous parties without the need for a central authority, legal system, or external enforcement mechanism. Smart contracts also allow both parties to have peace of mind as they render transactions traceable, transparent, and are irreversible.
What is the problem with Smart contracts?
The issue with Smart contracts is that they are simply not as secure as they need to be as we've seen Smart contracts hacked in the past and with these kinds of vulnerabilities comes plenty of scepticism especially from business and larger investors who have plenty to lose should a Smart contract be compromised.
Like any bit of programming Smart Contracts frequently suffer from bugs, even when the code has been fully audited. In fact, studies have found that 45 percent of the smart contracts examined from a set of over 19,000 contracts deployed on the Ethereum mainnet contained a subset of known exploits or vulnerabilities. A scary thought I know!
The second issue with Smart contracts is that with the emergence of open source blockchain projects the emergence dApp and Smart contract based blockchains has grown and since there is no consensus to which one is superior they will continue to run concurrently and in competition for one another namely Ethereum, NEO, EOS, Tron, Cardano, Qtum & Bitshares.
As companies select a blockchain to secure their smart contracts this immediately isolates them from suppliers hosed on other blockchains and custom connections will need to be made, opening up Smart contracts to vulnerabilities.
What is Firmo?
As Blockchains began to gain notoriety and scale these problems will only begin to get worse and worse. One forward-thinking project has seen this potential roadblock as an opportunity to secure Smart Contracts with their own protocal as well as looking at bringing old financial instruments into the blockchain environment.
The project is called Firmo.
The Firmo network and coding language also known as Firmolang acts as a layer of added security and enables smart contract across multiple blockchains the ability to run a secure execution of a new generation of financial contracts on the blockchain.
What is Firmolang?
FirmoLang can be compiled to any Blockchain. Currently, we work with Ethereum, but are exploring other strategic partnerships. 45% of deployed smart contracts written in Solidity, contain known vulnerabilities, redundancies or errors. Firmo solves this problem with FirmoLang, our formally verified, domain-specific language. Use a template to create a smart derivative with FirmoLang or code your own with our simple syntax.
FirmoLang not only provides added security and cross blockchain handshakes to your Smart Contract but it also simplifies writing them. Reducing the average Smart Contract code from 90 lines to around 12 to get a simple one up and running.
How does Firmo work?
The Firmo network enables users to create financial instruments using a secure Smart contract protocal in order to house what we can refer to as smart derivatives.
These smart financial contracts can host anything from offering products including but not limited to, futures, loans, options and swaps. The Firmo Protocol is designed to operate with a diverse selection of external liquidity providers and exchanges. These Smart derivatives are also non-fungible and can be traded on any regulated exchange which supports the Firmo Protocol.
Using the Firmo Protocol, Firmo looks to open up what seems like a logical evolution, by transitioning traditional financial assets into the emerging crypto markets.
Here's a quick intro to Firmo with Community Manager Analisa Winther
What is a derivative?
A derivative is a contract between two or more parties whose value is based on an agreed-upon underlying financial asset (like a security) or set of assets (like an index). Common underlying instruments include bonds, commodities, currencies, interest rates, market indexes and stocks. Futures contracts, forward contracts, options, swaps, and warrants are common derivatives.
These sorts of financial instruments hold quite a bit of monetary value and make up a 7th of the Global economy. Considering the magnitude of these types of financial instruments it's no wonder blockchain and cryptocurrency with its volatility is has not been able to secure financial derivatives and they will continue to be traded on the stock market or through centralised institutions like investmentt banks.
How does Firmo aim to change the financial market?
I think from this post its sort of self explanatory at this point but Firmo is trying to create an industry standard and medium to create and consolidate Smart Contracts across blockchains. Creating an easy, safe and secure way to create and manage these Smart contracts will create an attractive way for traditional investors to create digital versions of invesment products on the blockchain and drive blockchain adoption in a broader financial market.
Attracting these kinds of invesments into cryptocurrency will not only be a huge step in creating a less volitile market but increase mainstream adoption.
While this is a pretty exciting prospect I think the simple Smart contract with firmolang is way more important with far-reaching applications. Allowing non-tech savvy users to grab a template and set up a Smart contract gives Firmo the opportunity to bank the unbankable. Informal trade that may have been cash or trade agreements can be done via these Smart contract protocols and introduce what would otherwise be grey transactions into the blockchain
For more information on Firmo
Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice and is for educational purposes only. As of the time posting the writers may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency as all investments contain risk.
Post created for Original Works Writing Contest