Web3 Studying How to Integrate Kadena's Smart Contract Language on Polkadot

The Web3 Foundation is studying how to adopt blockchain startup Kadena’s Pact smart contract programming language for the Polkadot ecosystem.

The two organizations signed an agreement to kick off a research project studying how Pact can be integrated into different blockchain platforms, beginning with Polkadot, Kadena announced on Tuesday at CoinDesk’s Invest: NYC event.

Pact is designed to facilitate smart contract executions among developers that use different blockchains. Kadena hopes the language will become a smart contract standard, regardless of developers’ preferred blockchains.

The firm's founder Stuart Popejoy unveiled the cross-chain smart contract language in June 2019 for “hybrid blockchains,” both public and private. Kadena claims Pact is one of the first “human-readable” languages to execute smart contracts with Formal Verification, a way of verifying algorithms’ “correctness” using mathematical methods.

Formerly called Chainweb, Kadena's blockchain platform went live on Nov. 4, weaving together 10 proof-of-work (PoW) blockchains running concurrently. At the same time, the firm also announced a $20 million token sale.

The network tackles scaling challenges on existing PoW networks by running multiple blockchains concurrently, with shared merkle roots allowing for data to be shared across different networks.

Kadena raised $12 million through a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT) sale in April 2018. Fidelity Investments’ private investor arm, Devonshire Investors, Multicoin Capital, Asimov Investments, SV Angel and SIG participated in the token sale

The company’s push to integrate blockchain platforms with a universal smart contract language came on the heels of the Web3 Foundation’s interoperability project that facilitates inclusion of different Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain platforms.

“Web3 Foundation looks forward to the results of Kadena’s forthcoming feasibility study, and learning more about the role the Pact language could play in the Polkadot ecosystem.” Dieter Fishbein, the foundation’s head of grants, said in a statement.

Started by ethereum co-founder Gavin Wood, Polkadot launched its DOT token sale in July with a $1.2 billion valuation at the time. Three unnamed Chinese funds bought a certain portion of tokens with a valuation under $1 billion.

The Web3 Foundation, joined by Polychain Capital, set up a new investment fund to back Polkadot in October. The amount of this backing was not disclosed.

Stuart Popejoy image courtesy of Kadena