Introduction
This chapter will give you an overview over CosmWasm from a contract developer perspective, its capabilities, and guide you through initializing your first smart contract.
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We assume you have basic knowledge of Rust and Cargo (Rust's standard build system). If not, have a look here (opens in a new tab). No worries, you don't need to be a Rust expert to write your first contract.
What is CosmWasm?
CosmWasm is a platform for writing smart contracts for Cosmos chains using Rust and WebAssembly. Meaning CosmWasm is your one-stop shop for developing, testing, and running smart contracts on enabled chains.
What does CosmWasm provide?
For you, a contract developer, CosmWasm provides a set of high-quality primitives through our standard library. These primitives include:
- extended precision arithmetic (128, 256, 512-bit integers)
- cryptographic primitives (for example, secp256k1 verification)
- interaction with the Cosmos SDK
- IBC connectivity