Web3 App Development Using Solidity and Truffle Framework

Web3 App Development Using Solidity and Truffle Framework
Here are some guidelines for web3 app development:

As technology evolves and the internet slowly transitions from web 2.0 to the new web3.0 internet environment which comes with a higher level of security and privacy, a lot of developers are beginning to see web3 app development as the new gold mine as there is a massive amount of untapped potential that exists in the web3 industry.

Therefore in this post, we would be giving a basic guide to web3 app development using solidity to develop a smart contract and truffle framework in designing and creating the infrastructure and architecture for the web3 app. Just as it is with creating any other app, we need to define the process so as to make the web3 app development process easy and smooth. The following are some basic guidelines needed in creating a web3 app.

1. Define the objective and scope of your project

Before diving into building a Web3 platform or a web3 app, it is essential to define the goal and objectives of your platform. Based on your requirements, determine what kind of blockchain you need, whether it is a public or a private blockchain, and what consensus mechanism is best suited for your platform. You should also decide on the data structure and smart contracts that will power your platform.

2. Choose the right development stack

Once you have defined your goals, you need to choose the right development stack. You can select from a variety of blockchain programming languages, including Solidity, Java, and Go, among others. Moreover, you need to choose the right blockchain platform that hosts your smart contract code, such as Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, or Corda.

3. Develop and test smart contracts

Developing smart contracts is a crucial part of building Web3 platforms. Smart contracts are self-executing contracts that run on the blockchain and can automate the execution of predefined operations. You should write and test your smart contract code before deploying them on the blockchain.

4. Design the architecture and infrastructure

This step involves designing the architecture and infrastructure of your Web3 platform. You will need to decide on the type of nodes you will use, the consensus mechanism, storage, and security. You should also define the API standards and protocols for your platform.

5. Deploy and integrate smart contracts

After testing, you need to deploy your smart contract to the blockchain network. Once deployed, you can invoke the smart contract methods through APIs and integrate them with your front end. You can use blockchain explorer tools to monitor the status and activity of your smart contracts.

6. Configure Serverless Infrastructure:

Configure the serverless infrastructure to host the blockchain and middleware technologies required to run the DApp

7. Ensure data security and privacy:

As you’re handling user data, it is essential to ensure that the platform you’re building is secure and meets privacy standards.

8. Test the platform:

Once you’ve developed and deployed your platform, test it thoroughly to ensure it meets your requirements and works as intended.

These are the basic steps to develop a Web3 platform. However, the development process can get more complicated based on the nature and scope of your platform.

A Practical Example/Illustration of Web3 App Development

We would go further and take a practical approach using the guidelines we have highlighted above. So let’s assume we want to create a web3 app that creates a new user-decentralized wallet upon registration on a website, generating a referral ID unique to the wallet, and enabling the user wallet to quickly get a referral bonus each time the referral ID is used to register a new user on the website.

Using the guidelines above we would do the following. We would choose the blockchain network in which we would carry out the web3 app development protocol. In this case, we would use Ethereum. Therefore we would develop our smart contract on the Ethereum network, and since we are writing our smart contract on the Ethereum network, we would be writing our code using solidity, an ideal language for the Ethereum network.

You also need to determine the right framework to use in developing your web3 app and how it would be deployed. In this case, we would be using the Truffle framework to completely develop our web3 app.

These are the general steps involved in designing the architecture and infrastructure for a web3 platform. The specific tools and technologies used will depend on the specific requirements of your platform. Since we have already determined what we are working on, and the code language to use, we would choose the framework which we will use to design the architecture and infrastructure for the web3 app. In this project, we would be using the truffle framework.

Here are the steps to follow:

Firstly you create a new Ethereum project using Truffle framework:

truffle init

You then Install the required dependencies (assuming you’ve already installed Truffle and NodeJS):

npm install --save-dev @openzeppelin/contracts truffle-hdwallet-provider

The next step is to input the smart contract code you wrote using solidity, that is if you have written a smart contract code already if not you can write the smart contract into the truffle framework to handle user registration, referral tracking, and bonus payouts. Here is an example:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;

import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC20/IERC20.sol";
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC20/utils/SafeERC20.sol";

contract ReferralProgram {
    using SafeERC20 for IERC20; // Safe contract call with ERC20 tokens

    struct User {
        address referrer;
        uint256 bonus;
        bool isRegistered;
    }

    mapping(address => User) public users;

    IERC20 public token; // The token used to pay for referrals
    address public owner; // The owner of the platform

    event UserRegistered(address indexed user, address indexed referrer);
    event ReferralBonus(address indexed user, address indexed referrer, uint256 bonus);

    constructor(address _tokenAddress) {
        token = IERC20(_tokenAddress);
        owner = msg.sender;
    }

    function register(address _referrer) external {
        require(!users[msg.sender].isRegistered, "User already registered");

        if (_referrer != address(0) && _referrer != msg.sender) {
            users[msg.sender].referrer = _referrer;
            uint256 bonus = 50; // The referral fee in tokens
            users[msg.sender].bonus = bonus;
            users[msg.sender].isRegistered = true;
            token.safeTransfer(_referrer, bonus);
            emit ReferralBonus(msg.sender, _referrer, bonus);
        } else {
            users[msg.sender].isRegistered = true;
        }

        emit UserRegistered(msg.sender, _referrer);
    }
}

Compile the smart contract:

truffle compile

Write the test for smart contract:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;

import "truffle/Assert.sol";
import "truffle/DeployedAddresses.sol";
import "../contracts/ReferralProgram.sol";

contract TestReferralProgram {
    ReferralProgram referralProgram = ReferralProgram(DeployedAddresses.ReferralProgram());

    function testUserRegistration() public {
        // Test user registration with a referral
        address alice = address(0x384374367463736347643);
        address bob = address(0x384374367463736347644);
        referralProgram.register(bob, { from: alice });
        ReferralProgram.User memory aliceUser = referralProgram.users(alice);
        ReferralProgram.User memory bobUser = referralProgram.users(bob);
        Assert.equal(aliceUser.referrer, bob, "Alice's referrer should be Bob");
        Assert.equal(bobUser.bonus, 50, "Bob's bonus should be 50 tokens");
    }
}

Test the smart contract:

truffle test

Create a Frontend folder to host the HTML, CSS and JavaScript files for our application:

mkdir Frontend
cd Frontend

Create an index.html file and add the following code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <title>Referral Program</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Referral Program</h1>

    <label for="register">Enter referrer address:</label>
    <input type="text" id="referrerAddress">

    <button id="register">Register</button>

    <script src="app.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Create a style.css file and add the following code:

body {
  padding: 20px;
  font-family: sans-serif;
}

h1 {
  font-size: 24px;
  margin-bottom: 20px;
}

label {
  display: block;
  font-size: 18px;
  margin-bottom: 10px;
}

input[type="text"] {
  padding: 5px;
  font-size: 16px;
  width: 70%;
  border: 2px solid #ccc;
  border-radius: 5px;
  margin-bottom: 20px;
}

button {
  background-color: #673ab7;
  padding: 10px 20px;
  color: #fff;
  font-size: 18px;
  cursor: pointer;
  border: none;
  border-radius: 5px;
}

Create an app.js file and add the following code:

const web3 = new Web3(Web3.givenProvider);

const contractAddress = "YOUR_CONTRACT_ADDRESS";
const contractABI = [
  {
    "inputs": [
      {
        "internalType": "address",
        "name": "_tokenAddress",
        "type": "address"
      }
    ],
    "stateMutability": "nonpayable",
    "type": "constructor"
  },
  {
    "inputs": [
      {
        "internalType": "address",
        "name": "_referrer",
        "type": "address"
      }
    ],
    "name": "register",
    "outputs": [],
    "stateMutability": "nonpayable",
    "type": "function"
  },
  {
    "inputs": [
      {
        "internalType": "address",
        "name": "",
        "type": "address"
      }
    ],
    "name": "users",
    "outputs": [
      {
        "internalType": "address",
        "name": "referrer",
        "type": "address"
      },
      {
        "internalType": "uint256",
        "name": "bonus",
        "type": "uint256"
      },
      {
        "internalType": "bool",
        "name": "isRegistered",
        "type": "bool"
      }
    ],
    "stateMutability": "view",
    "type": "function"
  }
];

const referralProgram = new web3.eth.Contract(contractABI, contractAddress);

document.getElementById("register").addEventListener("click", async () => {
  const referrerAddress = document.getElementById("referrerAddress").value;

  await referralProgram.methods.register(referrerAddress).send({ from: window.ethereum.selectedAddress });

  alert("You have successfully registered!");
});

Start a local web server to host our frontend:

npm install -g http-server
cd Frontend
http-server

Open a browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080 to view our application. Enter the referral address and click Register. In this process, you would be able to test for any errors and then debug if any is found.

And that’s it! You have now created a prototype of your decentralized registration and referral platform. Do make sure that you replace YOUR_CONTRACT_ADDRESS with the actual address of the deployed smart contract when implementing this.