This is a curated collection of resources on specialized programming languages executed by decentralized peer-to-peer networks, also known as blockchains.
Let us define a smart contract, or simply contract, as a piece of code created by a blockchain user and executed by a blockchain node. A smart contract language (SCL) is a programming language that is either used to write a smart contract directly, or is compiled to it.
Programming languages differ on multiple dimensions, such as paradigm and type system. Due to a very unusual execution environment, SCLs have a different set of trade-offs compared to earlier languages. This spawned multiple attempts at creating secure and expressive SCLs.
- A formal language for analyzing contracts - an essay by Nick Szabo
- E - referenced by Szabo
- Bitcoin Script - a stack-based non Turing complete Forth-like language used to write script that determine whether a UTXO can be spent.
- Ivy - a non Turing complete higher-level language that compiles to Bitcoin Script (announcement)
- Simplicity - a typed functional programming language utilizing combinators blog post, another one
- Rootstock - do they use their own language?
- Ethereum bytecode - a Turing complete stack-based language executed by the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM)
- Solidity - a high-level imperative statically typed language compiled to EVM (docs)
- LLL - a "low-level Lisp-like language" compiled to EVM bytecode (blog post, series of blog posts)
- Viper - a high-level language compiled to EVM (announcement of formal tools from RV)
- Bamboo - a high-level "formal-verification-friendly" language compiled to EVM
- functional-solidity-language - pretty much self-descriptive :)
- eWASM - a restricted subset of WebAssembly for Ethereum contracts
- Serpent - a Python-like high-level language compiled to EVM (deprecated due to security issues with the compiler)
- Mutan - a C-like language compiled to EVM (deprecated)
- Idris - a pure functional language with dependent types; Pettersson and Edström used it to write contracts that compile to EVM via Serpent
- JULIA (IULIA?) - an intermediate low-level language (blog post)
- Babbage - "a mechanical smart contract language"
- Pyramid - An EVM backend for SICP Scheme
- Findel - a non Turing complete financial DSL inspired by a S.P.Jones' work
- the language from the paper by Egelund-Müller et al
- Michelson - a stack based and strongly typed domain-specific language (Tezos)
- Liquidity - a high-level typed smart-contract language that strictly complies to Michelson security restrictions (Tezos)
- Plutus - a pure functional language with user-defined data types and polymorphism (Cardano)
- Rholang - a reflective higher-order process calculus language (RChain)
- Obsidian - a state-oriented language with linear types
- DAML
- Qtum smart contract language (QSCL) - no details, also mentioned in an article
- https://github.com/pirapira/fp-ethereum - a collection of links related to function programming for Ethereum
- Smart Contract Languages Development to Follow - a post by Matt Suiche, Comae (Dec 2017)