Contract Lifecycle

Written By zbam

Last updated 12 days ago

Smart contracts follow a familiar lifecycle, with differences primarily in how actions are submitted and finalized.

Deploy

A contract is deployed by inscribing its compiled EVM bytecode and submitting that inscription to the Programmable Module.

The deployment:

  • Uses standard EVM creation semantics

  • Is executed deterministically when indexed

  • Produces a contract address in the same way as Ethereum

Once deployed, the contract becomes part of the global execution state and can be called by any subsequent operation.

There is no deployment transaction in the Ethereum sense; deployment is triggered by a Bitcoin transaction that carries the inscription data.

Call

Contracts are invoked by inscribing calldata and submitting it to the module.

From the contract’s perspective:

  • The call behaves like a normal EVM transaction

  • Calldata is ABI-encoded

  • Execution either succeeds or reverts

Calls may be authenticated using either:

  • Bitcoin-native identity (via BIP-322), or

  • Signed EVM transactions (transact), if explicitly used

Multiple contracts can be composed and called within a single execution, subject to gas limits.

Persist State

Contract state is persisted exactly as in Ethereum:

  • Storage writes are committed on successful execution

  • Reverted calls do not modify state

  • State transitions are deterministic and replayable

State is not stored on Bitcoin directly. Instead, it is reconstructed by replaying all valid inscriptions in order.

As long as indexers process the same Bitcoin history, the contract state is identical.

Emit Logs

Contracts may emit standard EVM events and logs.

These logs:

  • Follow Ethereum’s event model

  • Can be indexed by off-chain services and frontends

  • Are deterministic and replayable

Logs are not written to Bitcoin, but are derived from execution and can be reproduced by any compliant indexer.

Withdraw Back to Base BRC-20

Contracts may release assets back to base BRC-20 balances via withdrawals.

Conceptually:

  • Assets are locked under contract control during execution

  • A withdrawal reduces the contract’s balance

  • The corresponding BRC-20 balance becomes spendable on Bitcoin again

Withdrawals are finalized through Bitcoin transactions and do not rely on bridges or custodians.

From the developer’s perspective, this behaves like exiting from a smart contract back to the base asset layer, with Bitcoin providing final settlement.