EzBlocks

Description

We create smart contracts through a drag-and-drop model making them accessible to everyone.

Our goal is to optimize the development of smart contracts so that they can be implemented in the most diverse areas in the near future.

A smart contract is simply a computer program which is intended to automatically execute, control or document legally relevant events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement.

Since smart contracts use Blockchain technology (decentralized nature) and because of its immutable and distributed character there are many benefits that come with them.

Motivation

We are heading into a new era of the Internet, “Web 3.0” which is believed to be known as a possible solution to concerns related to the over-centralization of the web in a few “Big Tech” companies. 

The concept behind all of this revolves around the idea of decentralization and by incorporating Blockchain technologies many believe that this new era of the Internet could improve data security, scalability and privacy beyond what is currently possible with Web 2.0 platforms.

This is all very interesting but why try to come up with a solution to easily develop smart contracts when they are different from smart legal contracts? A smart contract does not necessarily constitute a valid binding agreement at law therefore it is not necessarily legally enforceable as a contract so what's the point of all this new revolutionary technology?

It's clear that in 2021 we witnessed an intense rise in popularity regarding these topics, and studies show that there has been an increase in Google searches related to Blockchain, smart contracts and solidity programming as you can see in the figures below.

                                                                    _{Blockchain monthly searches}

                                                                             _{Smart contracts monthly searches}

                                                                         _{Solidity programming monthly searches}

Clearly there's been a significant increase over the last few months, and we believe that this trend is only going up.

That being said why aren't we using smart contracts on a daily basis? Well, because it's easier said than done, the biggest issue we are currently facing is knowing how to properly develop them.

Smart contacts are programmed in a language called “Solidity” and in order to write them, one needs to possess a lot of knowledge related to programming. Since good programmer skills are very difficult to acquire, it's easy to see where the problem lies. If the goal is to implement smart contracts in many aspects of our lives, we need to come up with a process to create them in a large scale and in an easy and practical way.

That's where our solution comes in, by developing a very user friendly platform, we make it possible for this hard process, that is creating a smart contract through coding by turning it into a simple method that will only take a couple of minutes.

Our solution will allow the regular use of smart contracts in all these areas:

1. Product development
2. Records
3. Property ownership
4. Insurance
5. Mortgages
6. Medical research
7. Voting
8. Peer-to-peer transactions
9. Trade finance
10. Stocktaking

  Since they bring all these benefits to the Tech industry:

• Autonomy – With the use of the Blockchain as well as the nature of the contracts means no other people are required in the process
• More secure – Blockchain technology creates an unalterable register that provides definitive proof of transactions. It also uses encriptation while doing peer to peer transactions.
• Faster Speeds – Without the need for other people the process is much quicker
• Increased Accuracy – Humans make errors while smart contracts are designed not to.
• Cost Savings – The independent process reduces costs immensely
• Trust – The ledgers cannot be changed which means the transactions are set in stone
• Backup – Data storages fail. Smart contracts duplicate all transactions so that every party as a record of the transaction.

                                               _{Difference between traditional contracts and smart contracts}

How we will proceed

To make our idea a reality, we will develop a drag-and-drop platform that allows anyone, regardless of their programming knowledge, to create a smart contract on the most varied things with just a few clicks.

In our case, we will use this platform for events such as elections and various voting occasions. With this, voting becomes much more accessible for people making it easier to exercise their right to vote. On the other hand, the security of electronic voting is always questioned, but since these smart contracts are on the Blockchain their security and confidentiality will always be assured. With this platform we intend to tackle a problem that has been growing in our society which is abstention.

We chose to follow the idea of voting as we have recently seen several flaws in the current electoral process, such as the United States elections and elections in the football world. Also, due to the pandemic we're facing these days, online voting is probably the best solution. In Portugal, there's an estimation of 400K people in confinement by the time 2022 legislative voting occurs. This is a major problem that our solution can solve.

This platform will be developed in HTML, CSS and JavaScript that in turn will generate smart contracts in solidity language. With our programming knowledge we will write the code in a simple way making it easier to understand, so that in the future, when needed, we can make necessary and appropriate changes to the platform with ease.

That's our project!