Circle Launches Web3 Development Platform for Experienced Web2 Developers

Smart Contract Platform and Gas Station Tool

Circle, a stablecoin issuer, has unveiled a new tool called “Smart Contract Platform” to simplify the process of building Web3 apps. This platform enables developers to deploy smart contracts using pre-vetted code templates and either a console or REST APIs, making it easier for traditional Web2 programmers to use.

Circle has also released the Gas Station tool, which allows developers to pay for their users’ gas fees, thus making onboarding users simpler.

Prior to this launch, developers used Web3 developer tools such as Truffle or Hardhat to deploy contracts. These tools require developers to write contracts in Solidity, a language that some conventional programmers are not familiar with. They also require developers to create and run blockchain deployment or “migration” scripts, a process that many Web2 developers may not be aware of.

Crypto Aggregator App and NFTs

Circle’s smart contract platform provides a set of pre-vetted templates to create a variety of smart contracts, such as those for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), blockchain loyalty programs, and interactions with Uniswap or other decentralized finance projects or with Circle’s stablecoin contracts. This makes it easier for Web2 developers to start building in Web3, also known as the crypto aggregator app.

The platform also includes a “no-code” console for deploying contracts to Polygon, meaning developers do not need to write a “migration” script to deploy the contract. The “no-code” console is not yet available for Ethereum or Avalanche, but the platform provides a set of representational state transfer application programming interfaces (REST APIs) for use on these networks, allowing developers to deploy or interact with their contracts. REST APIs are the standard means that developers use to interact with Web2 databases, making them more familiar to developers that have never built crypto apps.

Circle plans to make both the “no code” console and REST APIs available for more networks in the future, the announcement stated.

Crypto Blockchain and NFTs

The platform’s documents state that developers can use it to deploy a custom contract that doesn’t use one of the templates. In this case, the developer has to provide the compiled bytecode for it, but they can still avoid needing to write a deployment script, since this can be handled either by the console or REST APIs.

Circle also introduced a second developer feature called “Gas Station”. This feature allows Web3 app developers to pay for their users’ gas fees, which could make it easier for developers to onboard users since they don’t have to pre-fund their wallets with the native coin of a network.

The Gas Station feature uses Ethereum’s account abstraction feature to enable these gas-free transactions. The Grab super-app has already integrated this feature, allowing users to redeem NFT vouchers without paying any gas fees, as stated in the announcement.