CASC: Content Addressed Smart Contracts

Abstract

Blockchains (BC) depend on content-based addressing, where data is identified and retrieved over its hash. Location-based addressing is used when addressing Smart Contract (SC) code. Using location-based addressing to refer to SC code risks that the code at the location is not the one expected, and it may even be manipulated. Furthermore, addresses for the same SC are different when deployed on multiple BCs. Code referring to other SCs must be adapted upon deploying them to another BC. Besides preventing these risks, content-based code addressing shows additional benefits, like storing the SC code outside the BC state. Therefore, this work developed a concept to use and benefit from content-based addressing during the development and operation of SCs, while retaining the convenience of location-based addressing.