Databases and Information Systems Commons^™

Why Do Smart Contracts Self-Destruct? Investigating The Selfdestruct Function On Ethereum, Jiachi Chen, Xin Xia, David Lo, John C. Grundy

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The selfdestruct function is provided by Ethereum smart contracts to destroy a contract on the blockchain system. However, it is a double-edged sword for developers. On the one hand, using the selfdestruct function enables developers to remove smart contracts (SCs) from Ethereum and transfers Ethers when emergency situations happen, e.g., being attacked. On the other hand, this function can increase the complexity for the development and open an attack vector for attackers. To better understand the reasons why SC developers include or exclude the selfdestruct function in their contracts, we conducted an online survey to collect feedback from them and …