How to run smart contracts in the Cardano Blockchain?

Question

I know that since Alonzo was launched smart contracts can be published in the blockchain now, but I have no idea how to do it.

I have read some articles about the Plutus Application Backend though, it's a platform to work with Plutus scripts and provides an API to run those scripts via an endpoint that it's embedded in the script. But this means that smart contracts that run in Plutus are still off-chain in the local machine instead of being running on-chain. Is this true?

Or am I missing something like other library that works with the Plutus smart contracts and can interact with my web DApps?. Please if there is any suggestion I would appreciate it.

Answer 1

How to run smart contract in Cardano Blockchain?

PAB isn't available yet outside of development. The only way to submit and interact with smart contracts on-chain is with the cardano-cli. Here is a thorough tutorial on how to do that.

But it means that smartcontract that run in plutus still off-chain or running in local machine instead of running on blockchain. Is that true?

I'm not sure if this answers your question, but if you are curious where the smartcontracts live, my answer over here might help.

Answer 2

You can run smart contracts with the cardano-serilization-lib and its js libraries. Check https://github.com/Berry-Pool/spacebudz to see an example. This allows you to host a web dApp where the user can connect with their Nami wallet, sign transactions that can contain datum, redeemer, everything needed to interact with smart contracts.