Developers, welcome! Smart contracts are live

We are thrilled to announce that the smart contracts have been deployed on the Aleph Zero Mainnet. Aleph Zero is now ready to house new dApps!

We have successfully updated the Mainnet to version 10.0, which brings the awaited ink! 4.0 smart contracts to the ecosystem. With this significant milestone, the Aleph Zero ecosystem opens up to run new projects that will benefit from the network’s speed, scalability, and security, together with the upcoming privacy framework to protect user data.

The runtime and Aleph Zero Foundation nodes have already been updated. Validators, please update your nodes with the latest Aleph Node at your earliest convenience.

So it begins

Up until now, users could natively transfer and stake their AZERO on the Mainnet while developers were building on the Testnet, tweaking their products before being able to release them for all ecosystem participants.

Today is the day when creativity can break free, and all the products can be freely deployed to the Mainnet, contributing to the growth of the Aleph Zero ecosystem and utilizing its features that adhere to the ethos of crypto and Web3.

I’m a developer. How do I start?

Aleph Zero is an open-source permissionless network to which anyone can contribute with their developments. This means products can be built on Aleph Zero without the core team even knowing about it, but should you seek any answers, we’re here for you!

The best way to start is by reading the documentation on Gitbook, but that’s probably the first thing you’d do anyway. To get direct support from the team, make sure you’re connected to the Aleph Zero Discord server–go to the #sc-general and #sc-support channels with all your questions. And since Aleph Zero’s smart contracts are powered by ink! 4.0, you can also learn more about this language on the dedicated page by Parity, the creator of ink!.

In the following weeks, we’ll release a Developer Portal that will guide developers through all the required onboarding in the form of tutorials and hand them over all the useful tools in one convenient place.

Once you’re up and running and ready to change the world, stay on the lookout for the upcoming Ecosystem Funding Program, which will help projects building on Aleph Zero in many ways. So far, we’ve announced the support from AWS Activate and Kudelski Security, but there’s much more coming. Stay tuned!

And if you want to show the project to the Aleph Zero community, listing it on the Ecosystem subpage is a good starting point!

Let’s witness the growth together!

While the launch of smart contracts on the Mainnet is an essential milestone for Aleph Zero, it is just the beginning of our journey as a community. We can’t wait to see the Aleph Zero ecosystem and community thriving in the following months and years. Still, some projects have already confirmed their launches over the next few days, so you should keep an eye on the upcoming developments!

Exciting times ahead!