Blockchain Smart Contract Management

Blockchain Smart Contract Management

Glossary

Term DefinitionsBlockchain is a distributed ledger technology where multiple computing devices participate in record keeping and jointly maintain a complete database. Smart Contracts are contracts triggered by transactions on a blockchain system and are defined in code. Bytecode is code that can be run directly by a virtual machine, in the form of smart contracts deployed on a blockchain. Trusted Execution Environment (YY) is a secure area in hardware where the code and data executed in YY are invisible to the operating system. Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) is a YY technology that provides functions such as memory encryption to protect data security. Manager is an entity that supervises the execution process and results of smart contracts. Managed Smart Contracts are supervised smart contracts. Smart Contract Management Rules are rules for supervising smart contracts. Smart Contract Blacklist contains a list of managed smart contract addresses. Encryption transforms data to make it unreadable. Decryption transforms encrypted data into readable data. Symmetric encryption uses the same key for encryption and decryption. Asymmetric encryption uses a public key for encryption and a private key for decryption. Digital Envelope Encryption is an encryption method that combines symmetric and asymmetric encryption. Short Answer Questions

Briefly describe what blockchain is and its three main types.

What is the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)? What role does it play in smart contracts?

Explain how smart contracts are created on the Ethereum blockchain.

Why are enterprise-level blockchain platforms facing two major challenges: privacy and performance?

Briefly describe the concept of a trusted execution environment (YY) and its application in blockchain.

Explain the shortcomings of the combination of traditional blockchain and YY.

How does the technical solution proposed in this study guide achieve the regulation of smart contracts?

What are the common forms of smart contract management rules?

How does Intel SGX technology protect smart contract code and data?

Briefly describe how symmetric and asymmetric encryption are used to protect smart contract code.

Answers to short-answer questions

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that allows multiple computing devices to participate in record keeping and jointly maintain a complete and secure database. There are three main types of blockchains: public chains, private chains, and consortium chains.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the core of the Ethereum network. It is a Turing-complete virtual machine that runs on each Ethereum node. The EVM is responsible for executing smart contract code, enabling it to run in a decentralized network.

Creating a smart contract on Ethereum requires compiling code written in a high-level language into bytecode, and then deploying the bytecode to the blockchain. After deployment, an account address corresponding to the smart contract is generated for subsequent calls.

Enterprise-level blockchain platforms need to balance privacy and performance, but it is usually difficult to meet both requirements at the same time. Most solutions either sacrifice performance for privacy or pursue performance while ignoring privacy protection.

A trusted execution environment (YY) is a secure area in the hardware that can execute code and process data in an isolated environment to prevent external attacks and tampering. YY can be used to protect the privacy of smart contract code and data on the blockchain.

The solution combining traditional blockchain and YY usually regards the entire smart contract as an object that needs to be protected, which makes data management difficult, especially when the contract content needs to be regulated.

The technical solution proposed in this study guide achieves the supervision of smart contracts by encrypting and storing the smart contract code and selectively decrypting and executing it in YY, while ensuring the privacy of unregulated contracts.

Smart contract management rules can take many forms, such as: a blacklist containing managed smart contract addresses, specifying contract address encoding rules, etc.

Intel SGX technology protects smart contract code and data by providing an encrypted area called an "enclave". Code and data are executed and stored in the enclave and cannot be accessed from outside, ensuring security and privacy.

Symmetric encryption can use the same key to encrypt and decrypt smart contract code, while when using asymmetric encryption, the public key can be used to encrypt the code and the private key can be used to decrypt the code, further improving security.