Psamathe: A DSL with Flows for Safe Blockchain Assets

TL;DR

Psamathe is a new domain-specific language for blockchain smart contracts that uses a flow abstraction to improve safety, reduce bugs, and simplify contract development compared to existing languages like Solidity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel flow abstraction in a DSL for blockchain contracts, enhancing safety and conciseness over traditional languages.

Findings

Psamathe reduces asset-related bugs in smart contracts.

Contracts written in Psamathe are more concise than in Solidity.

The paper provides a formalization and comparison of Psamathe with Solidity.

Abstract

Blockchains host smart contracts for crowdfunding, tokens, and many other purposes. Vulnerabilities in contracts are often discovered, leading to the loss of large quantities of money. Psamathe is a new language we are designing around a new flow abstraction, reducing asset bugs and making contracts more concise than in existing languages. We present an overview of Psamathe, including a partial formalization. We also discuss several example contracts in Psamathe, and compare the Psamathe examples to the same contracts written in Solidity.