Original author: Brayden Lindrea
Original title: Ethereum researchers unveil ‘time machine’ for even smarter, smart contracts
Original source: Cointelegraph
Compiled by: Koala, Mars Finance
Similar to how Gmail allows users to unsend emails, STXN’s new time machine feature will allow crypto users to reverse Ethereum transactions.
Ethereum researcher and co-founder of Smart Transactions (STXN) Vlad Zamfir has created a “time machine” that allows Ethereum users to reverse “smart transactions” on the blockchain, now that some transactions are no longer so immutable.
Smart trading also allows users to set specific conditions for trading timing and execution, STXN co-founder Anuj Das Gupta told Cointelegraph at the DevCon conference in Bangkok.
“STXN is like a time machine because it allows us to future-proof smart contracts,” Das Gupta said in a statement shared with Cointelegraph.
The feature will be supported on Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible blockchains and could come in handy for the thousands of cryptocurrency users who are making false transactions on the chain.
“Ethereum smart contracts are no longer limited by what was known at the time they were written,” said Das Gupta. “We believe this is an important solution to the tension between blockchain flexibility and immutability.”
STXN’s new CEO, Boris Mamlyuk, compared blockchain immutability to when internet users began sending emails in the late 20th century — once a message was sent, it could not be unsent.
But then Google’s Gmail added an “undo toggle” feature that provides a brief window to cancel sending an email, which “unleashed more utility and opportunity,” Mamlyuk said.
Das Gupta added that smart transactions are designed to solve this problem in Web3.
Anuj Das Gupta (left) and Boris Mamlyuk (right) at DevCon. Source: Andrew Fenton/Cointelegraph
“It allows us to travel forward or backward in time through the transaction sequencing process, which opens up a lot more utility, like that unsend button,” he explained.
STXN is building this time machine functionality into “CleanApp” — founded by Mamlyuk in 2013 — an app for reporting opportunities to clean something so that others can complete it in exchange for blockchain rewards.
Mamlyuk said that when the malicious actors are caught, the transactions will be reversed.
“If someone uses the application maliciously, we can go back and take back the blockchain rewards that someone earned for malicious use. So it’s a force multiplier. It opens up utility.”
STXN hopes to integrate this time machine functionality into other matching applications, such as a decentralized Uber.
Das Gupta noted that decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap have this matching functionality, but it only supports swaps.
STXN’s role is to build the infrastructure on which users can build matching applications.
Das Gupta and Mamlyuk hope that STXN will support a variety of decentralized matching applications.
The announcement follows STXN’s partnership with Ethereum infrastructure firm Consensys in July. Smart transactions are a feature implemented in Consensys’ Metamask wallet.
Anuj Das Gupta, co-founder of STXN, said: “STXN is like a time machine because it allows us to future-proof smart contracts. It also allows us to travel through time because Ethereum smart contracts are no longer bound by the limitations that were known when they were written. We believe this is an important solution to the tension between blockchain flexibility and immutability.”
