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Why Flow

Flow is a fast, decentralized, and developer-friendly blockchain designed to be the foundation for a new generation of games, apps, and digital assets that power them. It is based on a unique, multi-role architecture, and designed to scale without sharding, allowing for massive improvements in speed and throughput while preserving a developer-friendly, ACID-compliant environment. It natively allows development of smart contracts in the powerful Cadence language, and also supports full EVM equivalence with contracts written in Solidity.

What Makes Flow Unique​

Flow Blockchain​

  • Multi-role architecture: Flow's multi-role architecture allows the network to scale without sharding to serve billions of users without reducing the decentralization of consensus.
  • True Fast Finality: For most other networks, it takes minutes, a day, or even a week to reach hard finality - the point in which a transaction cannot be reversed. On Flow, this happens in well under 20 seconds, without compromising security.
  • Native VRF: Flow provides onchain randomness at the protocol level. Instead of implementing complex setup and paying $10+ USD per number, simply call the built-in function.
  • EVM Equivalence: The Cadence VM is powerful enough to allow other VMs to run inside of it, almost like a Docker Container. The first one integrated in this way is EVM, because of the comfort of many builders with Solidity and the EVM RPC API.

Flow Cadence​

  • Native Account Abstraction: Flow has protocol-native account abstraction. All accounts are smart accounts, supporting scripting, multiple keys, multi-signature transactions, and walletless onboarding with social logins.
  • Gasless Transactions: One of the three built-in signer roles for a Flow transaction is the signer. In other words, having one account sign a transaction and another pay for that transaction is simple.
  • Native Account Abstraction: Flow has protocol-native account abstraction. All accounts are smart accounts, supporting scripting, multiple keys, multi-signature transactions, and walletless onboarding with social logins.
  • Gasless Transactions: One of the three built-in signer roles for a Flow transaction is the signer. In other words, having one account sign a transaction and another pay for that transaction is simple.
  • Security: Smart contracts on Flow are natively written in Cadence, an easier, safer, and more secure programming language for crypto assets and apps. It's the first high-level, resource-oriented programming language.
  • Developer ergonomics: This network is designed to maximize developer productivity. Examples range from upgradeable smart contracts and built-in logging support to the Flow Emulator.
  • Consumer onboarding: Flow was designed for mainstream consumers, with payment onramps catalyzing a safe and low-friction path from fiat to crypto.

Flow EVM​

  • Speed, Cost, and Compatibility: Flow EVM can already run all of your audited Solidity contracts at less than 1 second, less than 1 cent per transaction (usually way less!). Unlike L2 solutions, Flow EVM reaches true finality in seconds - not in a week!
  • Bridge from Other EVM Networks: You can bridge hundreds of assets from dozens of chains to Flow.
  • VM Token Bridge: Assets can be bridged between Flow Cadence and Flow EVM easily with the VM token bridge.
  • Access to Cadence: You can access Cadence features and contracts from Flow EVM to take advantage of features such as native VRF, higher computation for lower cost, and any asset on Cadence Flow.
  • EVM Equivalence: Flow EVM is truly EVM Equivalent, not just EVM Compatible. It runs exactly the same as EVM mainnet, which means builders won't run into "minor" variances or endless "quirks" when they try to integrate. If it works on Ethereum Mainnet, it will work with Flow EVM.
tip

If you're already comfortable with Solidity, be sure to check out how Cadence works in our Guide for Solidity Developers!

Learning Shortcuts​

To get a complete picture on how to build on Flow, follow the 👈 sidebar top to bottom. This path will give you the most thorough onboarding experience.

If you like to jump right into the deep end of the pool, take a look below for more direct links to advanced topics!

Learn Cadence​

To take advantage of the full power of Flow, you'll need to learn Cadence. Learning a new language is an investment, but you'll find that Cadence is safer, more explicit, and less dangerous than other blockchain languages. Plus, it unlocks the full power of the Flow protocol!

Build with the EVM​

If you're not ready to take the plunge and learn Cadence, try out "EVM++" by deploying your existing EVM contracts. You'll find that Flow EVM is faster and cheaper than nearly every other EVM solution - without compromising on security.

Deploying on Flow EVM also gives your Solidity contracts access to many Flow Cadence features, such as native VRF.

App Development Quickstart​

The Flow App Quickstart covers the Flow core concepts, including:

  • App Client: The app client is the interface through which users interact with your app. Web and mobile applications are typical examples of app clients.
  • Smart Contract: A smart contract is a collection of code deployed to a permanent location on the blockchain that defines the core logic for a dApp.
  • User Account: A user account is a record on the blockchain that stores the digital assets owned by a single user.
  • Transaction: A transaction is a code submitted to the blockchain that mutates the state of one or more user accounts and smart contracts.
  • User Wallet: A user wallet is software or hardware that controls access to a user's account on the blockchain.
  • Script: A script is a request made to the blockchain that returns information about the state of your dApp's smart contracts.
  • Flow Client Library (FCL): The Flow Client Library is a framework that provides a standard interface to connect client applications and user wallets.

Core Contracts​

The Flow blockchain implements core functionality using its own smart contract language, Cadence. The core functionality is split into a set of contracts, called the core contracts:

  • Fungible Token: The FungibleToken contract implements the Fungible Token Standard. It is the second contract ever deployed on Flow.
  • Flow Token: The FlowToken contract defines the FLOW network token.
  • Flow Fees: The FlowFees contract is where all the collected flow fees are gathered.
  • Service Account: tracks transaction fees and deployment permissions and provides convenient methods for Flow Token operations.
  • Staking Table: The FlowIDTableStaking contract is the central table that manages staked nodes, delegation, and rewards.
  • Epoch Contract: The FlowEpoch contract is the state machine that manages Epoch phases and emits service events.

FLOW Token​

The FLOW token is the native currency for the Flow network. Developers and users can use FLOW to transact on the network. Developers can integrate FLOW directly into their apps for peer-to-peer payments, service charges, or consumer rewards. FLOW can be held, transferred, or transacted peer-to-peer.

Technical Background​

Tokenomics​

  • To understand more about Flow's Token Economics, and the FLOW token, read the Flow Token Economics guide.
  • FLOW tokens are Flow's native Fungible Token. To learn more about how to work with them in your applications, review the FLOW article.