Ant is one of the precursors who really started to dive deep into the Automated Transactions (AT) technology, the Burst smart contracts. With the upcoming Dymaxion release, ATs are not talked much about – so @tiptopanonymous reached out to him to have more details on what his experience was like.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your history and involvement with Burst?

ant: Hi, I’m ant. I joined Burst around March or April in 2017 when searching around for cryptocurrencies to invest in. Burst caught my eye as it was the only platform that was doing mining based on Proof-of-Capacity.

What work have you done with Burst Automated Transactions (AT)? What was that experience like and what were your thoughts?

a.: All my work can be found here. I made a few simple smart contracts such as “Lottery” and “The King”, which you can look up on the Burst Nation forum if you are interested. Hopefully, the wiki is good enough for people to understand. It was mostly experimenting with opcodes and watching the data in these contracts get updated every block. At that time, it was really fascinating to watch numbers change with every block update and trying to simulate what was happening in the blockchain in my brain.

How would you compare Burst ATs to smart contracts on other platforms such as Ethereum?

a.: Burst ATs in their current state are not as developed as other smart contracts on other platforms. The main issue that I have with Burst ATs is that every opcode (line of code) that is run by a miner costs 1 burst. This makes running a very simple contract – such as sending burst back from the smart contract itself – cost around 20 Burst. If these costs are brought down to maybe 0.001 burst per opcode, it can be just as good as Ethereum or any other platform once we bring in compilers and such.

What work is currently happening or needs to happen to bridge the gap? Do you see Burst ever catching up to Ethereum in terms of smart contract capability?

a.: I don’t think any work is currently happening to bridge the gap within the wallet itself. However, I saw that in the Dymaxion there is a clause that wants to bring down the cost to run smart contracts. Of course, this has to be “voted” on and it will depend on the community to bring it to fruition. BurstJack is also trying to work on a system to bring some life back into the smart contract space.

What are you most excited for with the upcoming dymaxion hard forks?

a.: Smart contract development. Doesn’t really matter what is coming, but the current smart contract system is insufficient for any development work to be done on it. We need a better test-net and infrastructure which the PoCC is currently working on providing. Once they bring the community together, actual development can finally happen on Burst’s smart contracts.

What are some of the most interesting use cases you see for burst once dymaxion comes out?

a.: If smart contracts work really well, the sky is the limit. Cryptokitties, or any other project can also happen.

Do you have any current projects you are interested in getting help or support with?

a.: Not at the moment, but I would love for people who are working on smart contracts to get in touch with me through the GitHub page. I would love for all the information (code or otherwise) that is learned by you to actually be on those wiki page, so that future people wouldn’t have to re-learn the same thing over again.

Any last words for the readers?

a.: Contact me on the Burst Discord if you have any questions about smart contracts. I’m free to have a discussion on anything related to coding either way. Your are welcome to check my portfolio at www.antonyip.com if you are interested in what I actually do for a living.

Thank you for your time!

Interview by tiptopanonymous

Also published on Medium.