# Introduction

# What is Proton?

Proton is a layer one proof-of-stake blockchain that leverages cutting-edge WebAssembly (WASM) (opens new window) smart contracts to enable high-performant, scalable and sustainable computation. Developers can leverage Proton to easily and securely build tokens, NFTs, exchanges, lending markets and much more.

Proton Smart Contracts use AssemblyScript (opens new window), a state of the art extension to Typescript (opens new window) that:

builds to high performance WASM
adds native types like u8, u16, u32, u64
integrates with the existing Web ecosystem

# Basic Smart Contract

A simple Proton smart contract has the structure:

import { Contract, print } from 'proton-tsc'

@contract("hello")
class HelloContract extends Contract {
    @action("say")
    say(text: string): void {
        print(text);
    }
}

To generate the WASM and ABI that you can upload to the Proton blockchain, simply run:

npx proton-asc hello.ts

Ready to begin your journey? Head on over to get started!

Getting started →