  Scilla is a higher-order polymorphic typed intermediate level language for
implementing smart contracts. In this talk, we describe a Scilla compiler
targeting LLVM, with a focus on mapping Scilla types, values, and its
functional language constructs to LLVM-IR.
  The compiled LLVM-IR, when executed with LLVM's JIT framework, achieves a
speedup of about 10x over the reference interpreter on a typical Scilla
contract. This reduced latency is crucial in the setting of blockchains, where
smart contracts are executed as parts of transactions, to achieve peak
transactions processed per second. Experiments on the Ackermann function
achieved a speedup of more than 45x. This talk abstract is aimed at both
programming language researchers looking to implement an LLVM based compiler
for their functional language, as well as at LLVM practitioners.
