Transaction being reverted by EVM during contract creation (Web3 / ethereumjs-tx)

Question

Hey guys I am running into an issue deploying a smart contract with Web3 to the Ropsten network. The code is running seemingly correctly, and there is a contract address being created, but if I check the transaction hash on Etherscan it shows that there has been an error in executing the contract. I don't think it's the contract itself as I've tested a couple contracts and they both have the same error.

const fs = require("fs");
const solc = require('solc');
let Web3 = require('web3');
const Tx = require('ethereumjs-tx').Transaction;

const testnet = 'https://ropsten.infura.io/v3/APIKEY';

const address = '0x0764eDcCD0278Ee60C421148B8baB812306D90D5';

const privateKeyValue = 'PRIVATEKEY';

const privateKey = new Buffer(privateKeyValue, 'hex');

const web3 = new Web3(new Web3.providers.HttpProvider(testnet));

const input = fs.readFileSync('contract3.sol');
const output = solc.compile(input.toString(), 1);

const abi = JSON.parse(output.contracts[':ERC20Interface'].interface);

const contract = new web3.eth.Contract(abi);

const weiAmount = web3.utils.toWei('1', 'ether');

let data = contract.methods.transfer(address, weiAmount).encodeABI();

async function main(){
  const gasPrice = await web3.eth.getGasPrice();

  const gasPriceHex = await web3.utils.toHex(gasPrice);

  const gasLimitHex = await web3.utils.toHex(7957355);

  const nonce = await web3.eth.getTransactionCount(address);

  const nonceHex = await web3.utils.toHex(nonce);

  const rawTx = {
    // from: address,
    nonce: nonceHex,
    gasPrice: gasPriceHex,
    gasLimit: gasLimitHex,
    data: data,
    value: web3.utils.toHex("97534000000000000"),
    chainId: web3.utils.toHex(3),
  };

  const tx = new Tx(rawTx, {'chain':'ropsten'});
  tx.sign(privateKey);
  const serializedTx = tx.serialize();

  console.log(serializedTx + 'serialized tx');

  const promiseEvent = web3.eth.sendSignedTransaction('0x' + serializedTx.toString('hex'));

  return promiseEvent
    .on('transactionHash', (txHash) => {
        console.log('TRANSACTION HASH');
        console.log(txHash);
        console.log('TRANSACTION HASH');
      }
    )
    .on('confirmation', (confirmNumber, receipt) => {
        console.log('CONFIRM NUMBER, RECEIPT');
        console.log(confirmNumber, receipt);
        console.log('CONFIRM NUMBER, RECEIPT');
      }
    )
    .on('error', (error => {
        console.log('ERROR');
        console.log(error);
        console.log('ERROR');
      })
    );

}

main();

Here's a link to the transaction hash: https://ropsten.etherscan.io/tx/0x8f703e3f87486baa60725186e9469d65f8355af94c8f9f43baae2d4aa5cb39b0

Versions are as follows: Web3 = 1.2.1 ethereumjs-tx = 2.1.0 solc = 0.4.25

Does anything seem out of sorts here? This is my first project trying to deploy a smart contract so I'm uncertain of the error and the tinkering I've been doing has been fruitless so far. Thanks!

Answer 1

The transaction does not have a "to" so the EVM will try to deploy a new contract using the data field as bytecode.

You are sending in the data field the following:

 0xa9059cbb0000000000000000000000000764edccd0278ee60c421148b8bab812306d90d50000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000de0b6b3a7640000

Now 0xa9 is not a valid opcode and the EVM will halt consuming all the reamining gas.