Overview

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.

Pre-Bitcoin

A formal language for analyzing contracts - an essay by Nick Szabo
E - referenced by Szabo

Bitcoin

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
BitML - a process calculus based language, compiles to Bitcoin script

Ethereum

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)
Vyper - 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
Yul (ex JULIA, ex IULIA) - an intermediate low-level language (blog post)
Babbage - "a mechanical smart contract language"
Pyramid - An EVM backend for SICP Scheme
L4 - a language "based on deontic modal logic", presented at Devcon 2 (Sep 2016)
SolidityX - a typed-superset of Solidity
Flint
Lolisa (subset of Solidity)
Formality - an efficient programming language featuring formal proofs
Logikon - an experimental language for smart contracts
Huff - an efficient low-level language with macros

DSLs

Findel - a non Turing complete financial DSL inspired by a S.P.Jones' work
the language from the paper by Egelund-Müller et al
Chorus - a financial contractual markup language by Firmo network
ADICO - a domain-specific language to support the contract modeling process

Other blockchains

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)
fi (Tezos)
Plutus - a pure functional language with user-defined data types and polymorphism (Cardano); compiles to Plutus Core (video)
Marlowe (Cardano)
Rholang - a reflective higher-order process calculus language (RChain)
Obsidian - a state-oriented language with linear types
DAML
Simvolio (Apla blockchain platform)
RIDE - a non Turing complete language infulenced by Scala and F# (Waves)
Scilla - an intermediate level language for verified smart contracts (Zilliqa)
TxVM (Chain)
IELE
Pact (Kadena)
Ledger Design Language - a modeling language for describing public ledgers
Sigma-State (Ergo)
Sophia - a strongly typed language in the ML family (Æternity)
Varna - a non Turing complete high-level language (Æternity)
Rholang - a concurrent programming language, with a focus on message-passing and formally modeled by the ρ-calculus (RChain)

rodrmp / smart-contract-languages