Smart Contracts: Smartening Law Through Code  

Central Blockchain Council of America

Smart Contracts 4 years ago
1 QCP
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Smart contracts are exactly that: Contracts that are Smart because they’re backed by 'a computerized transaction protocol that executes the terms of a contract' – and blockchain is the magic behind the smartness. The terms of agreement between parties are programmed into code and studded on a blockchain and when certain conditions that are built into the code seem meeting, specific actions, which are also defined in the code, trigger on their own.

The Ethereum blockchain platform - with its own native programming language and currency Ether - can be said to be the first one to be tailored for smart contracts. Of course, we now have multiple other blockchain approaches for implementing smart contracts – most of them peer-to-peer, and some client-server. But smart-contracting through blockchain is still inchoate at best. Only the standard contracting terms – those we encounter commonly – are what we can “smarten” up. And which means, we cant really use Smart Contracts for those very special contracts we may need in a unique business situation. We yet can’t do blockchain-based smart contracts for situations marked by flux, dynamism or legal uncertainty. Right now, it’s just those business situations in which parties share consensual relationships and are unlikely to wrangle among themselves on the terms later. Also, since smart contracts are digital in how they are done and what they do, they’re ideal for contracting when the terms and conditions of agreement too are also of a digital nature, and which, hence, lend themselves well to automation.

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https://www.cbcamerica.org/blockchain-impacts
  • Business development
  • Peer-to-Peer
  • Smart Contracts
  • Blockchain transactions
  • Ethereum