Developers can take advantage of the high performance and scalability of the SKALE network to build and deploy decentralized applications (dApps) on top of it. This development process is a multi-step process that focuses on technical setup and best practices to ensure optimal performance of the application.

First, developers need to access the SDK (Software Development Kit) of the SKALE chain, which allows them to run a SKALE chain locally, providing a sandbox environment for testing and development. The SDK supports necessary functions, such as EVM compatibility, making it easier to migrate existing Ethereum dApps to SKALE. Developers can download the SDK from GitHub and set up their local development environment following the installation instructions in the documentation.

Once the development environment is set up, developers can deploy their smart contracts on the SKALE chain. This process involves writing contracts in Solidity and deploying them using tools such as Hardhat or Truffle. The SKALE chain uses a token called sFUEL to pay transaction fees, which simplifies the user experience because it eliminates the need for users to pay gas fees. Developers can distribute sFUEL to their users, ensuring that transactions remain free and frictionless.

SKALE supports interoperability with Ethereum through its Interchain Messaging Agent (IMA). Developers can create custom bridges to map tokens and enable communication between the SKALE chain and the Ethereum mainnet.

To achieve optimal performance, developers should follow best practices such as efficient state management, proper storage usage, and minimized on-chain computation. SKALE provides detailed guidance and examples to help developers implement these best practices. For example, using Multi-Transaction Mode (MTM) can increase throughput and efficiently handle large bursts of traffic.

Case Study

Several projects have been successfully deployed on the SKALE network, demonstrating its capabilities in real-world scenarios. These case studies highlight the technical challenges and solutions provided by the SKALE infrastructure.

StrayShot

StrayShot is a 'play-to-earn' (P2E) shooting game that utilizes SKALE to support complex in-game transactions and interactions. The game leverages SKALE's high throughput to handle a large number of concurrent players, providing a smooth gaming experience and avoiding the common latency issues in blockchain games.

The important milestone of this game in collaboration with SKALE is how to provide a good experience using zero-cost transactions, encourage more users to participate and engage, while handling real-time interaction and high-frequency transactions, ensuring responsive and engaging gaming experience. It also integrates NFTs to represent in-game items, allowing players to trade and own unique assets securely and efficiently.

CryptoCrusades

CryptoCrusades is a strategy war game where players build empires and battle other players. The game uses SKALE's infrastructure to support real-time interaction and high-frequency transactions, ensuring a responsive and engaging gaming environment.

CryptoCrusades utilizes SKALE's elastic sidechains for horizontal scalability to handle increased transaction load. It also benefits from SKALE's zero-cost transactions, reducing the barrier to entry for players and eliminating concerns about gas fees in complex gaming activities. SKALE's interoperability with Ethereum also facilitates the integration of cross-chain functionality, enabling players to transfer assets and interact with other blockchain networks.

DeFi applications

Ruby.Exchange

Ruby.Exchange is a decentralized exchange (DEX) in the SKALE ecosystem, known as the first NFT-driven automated market maker (AMM).

The platform allows users to exchange tokens with zero Gas fees and conduct high-speed, low-cost transactions using SKALE's infrastructure. SKALE's elastic sidechains help Ruby handle a large volume of transactions and ensure fast transaction completion, providing a fast and efficient trading experience.

The platform also integrates NFTs to represent liquidity pool shares and governance rights, providing users with additional features and incentives. By deploying on SKALE, Ruby.Exchange has achieved significant cost savings and performance gains, attracting a growing number of traders and liquidity providers.

NFT Market

NFTrade

NFTrade is an NFT marketplace that leverages SKALE's zero-gas technology to enable free trading and minting of NFTs. This marketplace manages a large number of transactions while ensuring low costs and fast confirmations. SKALE's elastic sidechain helps handle large volumes of transactions and provides a smooth user experience, while providing interoperability with Ethereum, allowing users to transfer and trade NFTs across different blockchain networks.

By deploying on SKALE, NFTrade realizes cost savings and improves the user experience, attracting more creators and collectors to its platform. The marketplace also offers advanced features such as NFT staking and decentralized governance, enhancing its functionality and appealing to a wider user base.

Untitled Platformer

Untitled Platformer is a retro platform game where players can choose to destroy or team up with others to showcase their skills in thrilling multiplayer games.

The game uses SKALE's infrastructure to manage in-game transactions and interactions, without worrying about latency issues. Its zero-cost transactions provide a low-cost gaming experience, encouraging more players to participate and interact. Scalability is also an important use case study, especially since it can handle a large number of simultaneous players and interactions, ensuring a responsive immersive experience. Untitled Platformer also integrates NFTs to represent in-game items and achievements, providing players with unique tradable assets and asset ownership.

Supply Chain Management

bld.ai: bld.ai is a supply chain management solution that leverages SKALE to track goods and manage logistics efficiently. The application requires a reliable and scalable blockchain to handle the large number of transactions and data involved in the process from production to delivery. bld.ai Ensure high performance and scalability with SKALE's elastic sidechains for a smooth and efficient tracking experience. The platform also benefits from SKALE's interoperability with Ethereum, allowing it to integrate with other supply chain solutions and blockchain networks. By using SKALE, bld.ai can provide a comprehensive and efficient supply chain management solution that supports a variety of industries and use cases. The platform also takes advantage of advanced features such as real-time tracking and automated compliance checks, enhancing its functionality and reliability.

Application chain and hub chain

SKALE offers two main types of chains: app-chains and hub-chains, each providing specific customization and scalability solutions. App-chains are specialized SKALE chains tailored for individual applications, providing full control over resources, allowing developers to optimize the performance and security of their dApps. These chains can be horizontally scaled by adding nodes to ensure they can handle increased transaction loads.

Developers can configure the application chain to meet their specific needs, such as adjusting block time and gas limits to match the requirements of their application. The application chain also provides isolation from other applications, ensuring that performance issues or security vulnerabilities of one application do not affect other applications.

On the other hand, the center chain is the shared SKALE chain designed to support multiple applications within specific domains such as DeFi, gaming, or NFTs. They provide shared infrastructure that allows different dApps to benefit from collective scalability and resource management, facilitating complex use cases like decentralized exchanges (DEX) and gaming ecosystems. Through resource pools, they are able to achieve higher throughput and better performance for all participating dApps, while also providing economies of scale and reducing operational costs for developers and users.

Both the application chain and the central chain use SKALE's containerized validator nodes and BLS threshold encryption to ensure security. Validator nodes are dynamically allocated to ensure optimal performance and decentralization. The setup process involves deploying the SKALE Manager smart contract on Ethereum to manage chain creation, validator node registration, and staking.

Once set up, developers can deploy dApps on the configured chain and start building on SKALE. BLS threshold encryption ensures that all transactions are validated by a supermajority of nodes, thereby enhancing network security and decentralization.

In terms of customization, SKALE chain provides multiple options for developers to adjust the environment according to the needs of their applications. This includes setting custom gas limits, block times, and transaction fees, as well as choosing to implement additional security measures such as multi-signature wallets and custom consensus algorithms to improve the reliability and security of the chain.

In terms of scalability, the chain can handle increased transaction volume and maintain high performance by adding more validation nodes, ensuring that applications can grow and develop without being limited by traditional blockchain systems.

BLS threshold encryption ensures that all transactions are validated by a supermajority of nodes, thereby enhancing the security and decentralization of the network. The Proof of Stake (PoS) model provides economic incentives for validating nodes to maintain network integrity and performance. Its economic model is designed to support long-term network growth and sustainability. By combining inflation and transaction fees to reward validating nodes and incentivize participation, developers use SKL tokens to pay for SKALE chain resources, which helps fund network operations and development. This model ensures that the network remains economically viable while providing low-cost, high-performance dApp infrastructure.

Highlights

• Developers can use the SKALE SDK to build and deploy dApps, following best practices for optimal performance.
• The case study showcases successful projects in gaming, DeFi, NFT marketplaces, and supply chain management, proving SKALE's capabilities.
• The application chain and the central chain provide customizable and scalable solutions for individual applications and shared ecosystems.
• The SKALE chain uses containerized validator nodes and BLS threshold cryptography to ensure security and performance.
• Customization options allow developers to tailor the environment to their specific needs, enhancing the functionality of the dApp.