smart contracts

Mastering Blockchain: Unlocking the Power of Cryptocurrencies and Smart Contracts
by Lorne Lantz and Daniel Cawrey
Published 8 Dec 2020

different token types, Different Token Types, Different Token Types many different token types, Fungible and Nonfungible Tokens Ethereum Classic (ETC), Forking Ethereum and the creation of Ethereum Classic Ethereum Foundation, The Ethereum Foundation Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), Understanding Ethereum Requests for Comment Ethereum Naming Service, Naming Services Ethereum Requests for Comment (ERCs), Understanding Ethereum Requests for Comment-ERC-1155ERC-1155, ERC-1155 ERC-20, ERC-20 ERC-721, ERC-721-ERC-777 ERC-777, ERC-777 viewing all ERC standards online, Decentralized Exchange Contracts Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), The Ethereum Virtual Machine-Gas and Pricingauthoring a smart contract, Authoring a smart contract deploying a smart contract, Deploying a smart contract-Deploying a smart contract executing a smart contract, Executing a smart contract interacting with a smart contract, Interacting with a smart contract reading a smart contract, Reading a smart contract writing a smart contract, Writing a smart contract Etherscan.io, Block explorers exchange traded funds (ETFs), Derivatives exchange traded notes (ETNs), Derivatives exchanges, Exchanges, Evolution of the Price of Bitcoin, The Role of Exchanges-The Role of ExchangesAPIs and trading bots, Exchange APIs and Trading Bots-Market Aggregators as custodial wallets, Wallet Types: Custodial Versus Noncustodial basic types of, The Role of Exchanges Bitcoin addresses, The Evolution of Crypto Laundering custody over customer funds, Counterparty Risk custody setup, how it might work, Counterparty Risk decentralized, Decentralized Exchanges decentralized exchange contracts, Decentralized Exchange Contracts-Summary decentralized exchange on Omni Layer, How Omni Layer works decentralized versus centralized, Decentralized Versus Centralized Exchanges-Scalability hacking attacks on, Exchange Hacks-NiceHashMt.

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Gox-Bitfinex multisignature wallet contracts, Multisignature Contracts-Multisignature Contracts N Namecoin, Altcoins naming services, Naming Services network hash rate, Block discovery networkscentralized versus decentralized versus distributed design, Distributed Versus Centralized Versus Decentralized Corda, The Corda networknodes having visibility into transactions, Corda ledger DAG design, DAGs Libra's centralization challenge, Novi transactions confirmed by network on Bitcoin, Transaction life cycle New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), FinCEN Guidance and the Beginning of Regulation NiceHash, NiceHash Nightfall blockchain, Nightfall nodes, Distributed Versus Centralized Versus Decentralizedin Avalance consensus mechanism, Avalanche Libra, validator and full nodes, How the Libra Protocol Works Lightning, Lightning nodes and wallets in proof-of-stake networks, Proof-of-Stake nonces, The mining processin block discovery on Bitcoin, The mining process running out of nonce space or overflow, The mining process in Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper, The Whitepaper noncustodial wallets, Wallet Types: Custodial Versus Noncustodial(see also wallets) nonfungible tokens, Fungible and Nonfungible TokensERC-721 standard for, ERC-721 Nothing-at-Stake problem, Proof-of-Stake Novi wallet, Novi NuBits, NuBits NXT blockchain, NXT O oligarchical model dominating the web, Web 3.0 Omni Core, Understanding Omni Layerlimitations of, Deploying and Executing Smart Contracts in Ethereum Omni Layer, Understanding Omni Layer-Adding custom logicadding custom logical operations to Bitcoin, Adding custom logic-Adding custom logic how it works, How Omni Layer works limitations of, Deploying and Executing Smart Contracts in Ethereum technical stack, overview of, Understanding Omni Layer Tether project built on, Tether opcodes, Gas and Pricing Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, The More Things Change operating system platform (EOS), Blockchains to Watch operators, ERC-777, ERC-1155 Optimistic Rollups, Other Altchain Solutions, Lightning nodes and wallets options, Derivatives OP_RETURN field, Adding custom logictranslation of metadata in, Adding custom logic Oracle, Blockchain Platform, Blockchain as a Service oracles, Important Definitionsmanipulation in Fulcrum attack, The Fulcrum Exploit order books, Order Booksthin, slippages and, Slippage over-the-counter (OTC) market, Slippage P paper wallets, Wallet Type Variations Parity, Parity Parity hack (2017), Parity participants, Participants passwordssecurity vulnerabilities, Zero-Knowledge Proof Thinbus Secure Remote Password protocol, Zero-Knowledge Proof pay-to-play, Tools for fundamental analysis payment channels, Lightningnode dropping or losing connection to, Lightning nodes and wallets opening by sending funding transaction, Funding transactions withdrawing funds from, Off-chain transactions payment systemsLibra, Borrowing from Existing Blockchains permissioned ledger uses of blockchain, Payments physical cash versus digital, Electronic Systems and Trust Permacoin, Alternative methods permissioned ledger uses of blockchain, Permissioned Ledger Uses-Paymentsbanking, Banking central bank digital currencies, Central Bank Digital Currencies gaming, Gaming health care, Health Care Internet of Things, Internet of Things IT systems, IT payments systems, Payments permissioned ledgers, Databases and Ledgers permissionless ledgers, Databases and Ledgers person-to-person trading of cryptocurrency, Evolution of the Price of Bitcoin phishing attacks, Security Fundamentals Plasma implementation of sidechains, Other Altchain Solutions Ponzi schemes in cryptocurrency, Skirting the Laws PotCoin, More Altcoin Experiments precompilation of zk-SNARKs, zk-SNARKs preminingissues with, Litecoin premined altcoin, Ixcoin, Altcoins prices (gas), Gas and Pricing Primecoin, Altcoins privacyand censorship resistance with dapps, Use Cases Ethereum-based privacy implementations, Ethereum-Based Privacy Implementations future developments in blockchains, Privacy information security in decentralizing finance and the web, Privacy-Ring Signaturesring signatures, Ring Signatures Zcash, Zcash zero-knowledge proof, Zero-Knowledge Proof zk-SNARKs, zk-SNARKs insufficient anonymity on Bitcoin, The Evolution of Crypto Laundering paired with scalability, Mimblewimble blockchain protocol, Mimblewimble, Beam, and Grin privacy-focused blockchains, PrivacyMonero, Blockchains to Watch-How Monero Works Zcash, Zcash privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, Privacy-Focused CryptocurrenciesDash, Dash Monero, Monero Zcash, Zcash private blockchain networks, Privacy private blockchains, The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance private keys, Public/private key cryptography(see also public/private key cryptography) products/services, buying or selling, Evolution of the Price of Bitcoin proof-of-history, Alternative methods proof-of-stake, Proof-of-Stake-Proof-of-StakeByzantine fault-tolerant algorithm, HotStuff, Borrowing from Existing Blockchains Casper algorithm in Ethereum 2.0, Ethereum Scaling proof-of-stake velocity, More Altcoin Experiments proof-of-storage, Alternative methods proof-of-work, Block Generation, Proof-of-Work-Confirmationsbit gold's client puzzle function type, Bit Gold block discovery, Block discovery confirmations by miners of blocks to include in blockchain, Confirmations criticisms of, Proof-of-Stake, Ripple and Stellar CryptoNote protocol, Monero Ethereum's Ethash protocol, Ethereum: Taking Mastercoin to the Next Level longest chain rule, The mining process mining process for block discovery on Bitcoin, The mining process mining process on Bitcoin, The mining process in Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper, The Whitepaper transaction life cycle, Transaction life cycle use by B-Money, B-Money use by Hashcash, Hashcash X11 ASIC-resistant, Dash protocols, Electronic Systems and Trust pseudonimity, KYC rules and, KYC and pseudonymity public keys, Public/private key cryptography(see also public/private key cryptography) public/private key cryptographyBitcoin's use of, Public/private key cryptography examples of public and private keys, Naming Services generating keys, Generating keys private key storage for digital wallets, Authoring a smart contract private keys for wallets, Private Keys public and private keys in cryptocurrency systems, Public and Private Keys in Cryptocurrency Systems-Public and Private Keys in Cryptocurrency Systems unauthorized access to private key, Bitcoin Transaction Security use in controlling access to personal information, Identity and the Dangers of Hacking pull transactions, Bitcoin Transaction Security, ERC-777 push transactions, Bitcoin Transaction Security, ERC-777 Q Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB), Blockchain as a Service Quorum blockchain, Quorum, JPMorgan R ransomware, CryptoLocker and, CryptoLocker and Ransomware rate limiting, Exchange Risk, Rate Limiting real estate transactions, using tokens on a blockchain, Tokens on the Ethereum Platform recovery seed, Recovery Seed recursive call vulnerability, Forking Ethereum and the creation of Ethereum Classic regulationof cryptocurrency exchanges, Jurisdiction FATF and the Travel Rule, The FATF and the Travel Rule FinCEN guidance and beginnings of, FinCEN Guidance and the Beginning of Regulation-FinCEN Guidance and the Beginning of Regulation regulatory challenges in cryptocurrency market, Regulatory Challenges-Basic Mistakes regulatory issues with ICOs, Tokenize Everything regulatory arbitrage, Avoiding Scrutiny: Regulatory Arbitrage-Crypto-Based StablecoinsICOs as example of, Initial Coin Offerings relational databases, Databases and Ledgers replay attacks, Replay attacksprotecting against, on Ethereum and Ethereum Classic, The Ethereum Classic Fork replication systems, Databases and Ledgers REST APIsEthereum network, Interacting with Code WebSocket versus, REST Versus WebSocket ring confidential transactions, Blockchains to Watch, How Monero Works ring signatures, Monero, Ring Signatures, Blockchains to Watchhiding public address of sender on Monero, How Monero Works Ripple, Other Concepts for Consensus, Rippleblock times, Float Configuration 2 Robinhood mobile app, Brokerages Rollups, Zero Knowledge (ZK) and Optimistic, Other Altchain Solutions, Lightning nodes and wallets Royal Mint, The Royal Mint S Santander, blockchain-issued bonds, Banking SAP, Blockchain as a Service, Blockchain as a Service satoshi, Gas and Pricing Satoshi Nakamotobitcoin address related to, The Evolution of Crypto Laundering efforts to establish identity of, Storing Data in a Chain of Blocks identity, guesses at, Bahamas Satoshi's Vision group (Bitcoin SV), The Bitcoin Cash Fork whitepaper, The Whitepaper savings services (DeFi), Savings scalabilitycentralized versus decentralized exchanges, Scalability discontent over Bitcoin network's scaling, The Bitcoin Cash Fork EOS solution to blockchain issues, Tokenize Everything privacy paired with, Mimblewimble blockchain potocol, Mimblewimble, Beam, and Grin Scalable Transparent ARguments of Knowledge (STARKs), STARKs scaling blockchains, Scaling Blockchains-Other Altchain Solutions, The Scaling Problem-Ethereum ScalingAvalanche consensus mechanism, Avalanche DAG network design, DAGs Ethereum, Ethereum Scaling-Ethereum Scaling Lightning solution, Lightning, Lightning-Lightning nodes and wallets Liquid multisignature wallet, Liquid other altchain solutions, Other Altchain Solutions SegWit, SegWit sharding, Sharding sidechains, Sidechains STARKs, STARKs Schnorr algorithm, Privacy Scott, Mark, Skirting the Laws SCP consensus protocol, Stellar scripted money, Improving Bitcoin’s Limited Functionality Scrypt mining, Altcoins, Litecoin Secret Network, Privacy securitiestokens proposed in ICOs, Different Token Types unregistered securities offerings, Skirting the Laws Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), FinCEN Guidance and the Beginning of Regulation securityBitcoin transaction security, Bitcoin Transaction Security custody infrastructure for exchanges, Counterparty Risk detection of blockchain tampering with Merkle roots, The Merkle Root early vulnerability on Bitcoin, An Early Vulnerability exchanges taking care of private keys, Counterparty Risk flash loans exploiting vulnerabilities in DeFi platforms, The Fulcrum Exploit fundamentals for cryptocurrencies, Security Fundamentals-Recovery Seed identity and dangers of hacking, Identity and the Dangers of Hacking information security in decentralizing finance and the web, Privacy Lightning Network vulnerabilities, Lightning proof-of-stake consensus algorithm, criticisms of, Proof-of-Stake recursive call vulnerability, Forking Ethereum and the creation of Ethereum Classic replay attacks vulnerability, Replay attacks, The Ethereum Classic Fork sharding, vulnerabilities with, Other Altchain Solutions theft of cryptocurrencies in exchange hacks, Exchange Hacks-NiceHash theft of cryptocurrencies in other hacks, Other Hacks-Summary transaction malleability vulnerability, Lightning nodes and wallets security token offerings (STOs), Different Token Types security tokens, Token Economics seeds (recovery), Recovery Seedstorage of, Authoring a smart contract SegWit (Segregated Witness), SegWit, Lightning nodes and wallets self-sovereign identity, Identity and the Dangers of Hacking SHA-256 hash algorithm, Introducing the Timestamp Server, Hashes SHA256 and RIPEMD160 functions, Generating keys shadow market for disinformation, Tools for fundamental analysis sharding, Other Altchain Solutions, Shardingin Ethereum 2.0, Ethereum Scaling Shavers, Trendon, Skirting the Laws Shrem, Charlie, Skirting the Laws sidechains, Other Altchain Solutions, SidechainsLiquid technology and, Liquid Optimistic Rollups and, Lightning nodes and wallets Silk Road, Catch Me If You Cancriminal investigation tracking bitcoin address to operator, The Evolution of Crypto Laundering provision of bitcoin to users without KYC/AML, Skirting the Laws SIM swapping, SIM Swapping-SIM Swapping Singapore, regulatory arbitrage, Singapore single-shard takeover attacks, Other Altchain Solutions slashing algorithms, Proof-of-Stake slippage, Slippage smart contracts, Mastercoin and Smart ContractsDAML language for distributed applications, DAML for decentralized exchanges, Decentralized Exchange Contracts, Custody and counterparty risk deploying and executing in Ethereum, Deploying and Executing Smart Contracts in Ethereum-Interacting with Codeauthoring a smart contract, Authoring a smart contract deployment, Deploying a smart contract-Deploying a smart contract Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), The Ethereum Virtual Machine executing a smart contract, Executing a smart contract gas and pricing, Gas and Pricing interacting with a smart contract, Interacting with a smart contract programmatically interacting with Ethereum, Interacting with Code reading a smart contract, Reading a smart contract writing a smart contract, Writing a smart contract deployment for dapps, Challenges in Developing Dapps EOS platform, Blockchains to Watch ERC-20 compliantevents supported by, ERC-20 example of, ERC-20-ERC-20 methods implemented, ERC-20 ERC-compliant, library of, Decentralized Exchange Contracts flash loanscreating the contract, Creating a Flash Loan Contract-Deploying the Contract deploying the contract, Deploying the Contract manipulation of oracles in Fulcrum attack, The Fulcrum Exploit steps in process, Flash Loans Libra support for, Borrowing from Existing Blockchains Omni Layer providing, Understanding Omni Layer publicly viewable record of method call to Uniswap smart contract, Custody and counterparty risk-Exchange rate sending tokens to via push and pull transactions, ERC-777 third-party auditors of, Fungible and Nonfungible Tokens Uniswap contract viewable on Ethereum, Infrastructure social media, campaigns to influence cryptocurrencies, Tools for fundamental analysis soft forks, Understanding Forks software development, changes from use of cryptcurrency and blockchain, Web 3.0 software forks, Understanding Forks software wallets, Wallets Solidcoin, Altcoins Solidity language, Authoring a smart contract South Korean exchanges, Regulatory Challenges speculation in cryptocurrency, Market Infrastructure, Tulip Mania or the internet?

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Here is the ABI for the Guestbook smart contract: [{"constant":true,"inputs":[{"name":"_bookentrynumber","type":"uint256"}], "name":"getmessagefromreader","outputs":[{"name":"_messagefromreader", "type":"string"}],"payable":false,"stateMutability":"view","type":"function"}, {"constant":true,"inputs":[],"name":"getnumberofmessagesfromreaders", "outputs":[{"name":"_numberofmessages","type":"uint256"}],"payable":false, "stateMutability":"view","type":"function"}, {"constant":true,"inputs":[],"name":"getmessagefromauthors", "outputs":[{"name":"_name","type":"string"}],"payable":false, "stateMutability":"view","type":"function"}, {"constant":false,"inputs":[{"name":"_messagefromreader","type":"string"}], "name":"setmessagefromreader","outputs":[],"payable":false, "stateMutability":"nonpayable","type":"function"}, {"constant":false,"inputs":[{"name":"_messagefromauthors","type":"string"}], "name":"setmessagefromauthors","outputs":[],"payable":false, "stateMutability":"nonpayable","type":"function"}, {"inputs":[],"payable":false,"stateMutability":"nonpayable","type":"constructor"}] Reading a smart contract Let’s read the data in the Guestbook smart contract. You should see something like Figure 4-8. Figure 4-8. Viewing read-only functions of a deployed smart contract This figure shows the three read functions that the Guestbook smart contract has. The first function requires an input to return data, and the other two don’t. Writing a smart contract Let’s now write some data to the Guestbook smart contract. This will look something like Figure 4-9. Figure 4-9. Calling a write-only function of a deployed smart contract The MetaMask browser extension will provide you with the choice to connect to the website or not.

Stake Hodler Capitalism: Blockchain and DeFi
by Amr Hazem Wahba Metwaly
Published 21 Mar 2021

User accounts can interact with smart contracts by sending transactions that perform functions DeFined in the smart contract. Smart contracts specify rules as regular contracts, and these get enforced automatically using code. Smart contracts assist with the exchange of money, property, shares, or anything valuable in a transparent, non-conflict way while forgoing the services of a middleman. Specific output is guaranteed with the correct input. This logic is coded in the vending machine the same way it is coded into a smart contract. Anyone can sign smart contracts and use them on the web. All that is required of you is to learn to code in smart contract language and have enough ETH to use the contract.

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Nonetheless, it must be compiled before use so that the Ethereum VM can deduce and store the contract. Smart contracts are publicly available on Ethereum and can be considered an open API. This means that other smart contracts can call their smart contracts to expand their functionality greatly. Contracts may also activate other contracts. By itself, smart contracts cannot send HTTP requests and therefore cannot accept "actual" event information. This is intentional because the use of external information can undermine the consensus important to security and decentralization. The Operation Process of a Smart Contract The smart contract is an automated computer code for executing all or part of a contract.

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Blockchain Ways Blockchains Are Implemented Banking and finance Currency Health care Records of property Supply chains Pros and Cons of Blockchain Blockchain Advantages Disadvantages of Blockchain Chapter 3: Introduction to Smart Contracts The Operation Process of a Smart Contract How can you use smart contracts? Government Management Automobile Real estate Healthcare Benefits of Smart Contracts Problems of Smart Contracts Chapter 4: Ethereum and DeFi Popular DeFi Apps: Lending and borrowing MakerDAO DAI Overview Stable-coin With Cryptocurrency Decentralized Exchange Degrees of Decentralization Compound Derivatives DAOs Prediction markets Saving Staking Tokenization Trading DeFi vs.

Mastering Ethereum: Building Smart Contracts and DApps
by Andreas M. Antonopoulos and Gavin Wood Ph. D.
Published 23 Dec 2018

Reading and Writing Data While it is costly to store, read, and modify data, these storage operations are a necessary component of most smart contracts. Smart contracts can write data to two places: Global state The state variables in a given smart contract are stored in Ethereum’s global state trie; a smart contract can only store, read, and modify data in relation to that particular contract’s address (i.e., smart contracts cannot read or write to other smart contracts). Logs A smart contract can also write to Ethereum’s chain data through log events. While Vyper initially employed the __log__ syntax for declaring these events, an update has been made that brings its event declaration more in line with Solidity’s original syntax.

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Remote Procedure Call (RPC) commands (see JSON-RPC API) request-response oracles, Oracle Design Patterns require function, Error Handling (assert, require, revert) resolver contracts, Resolvers revert function, Error Handling (assert, require, revert) reward, defined, Quick Glossary RLP (Recursive Length Prefix), Quick Glossary, The Structure of a Transaction root seeds, creating HD wallets from, Creating an HD Wallet from the Seed Ropsten Test Network, Getting Some Test Ether RPC (Remote Procedure Call) commands (see JSON-RPC API) Rubixi pyramid scheme, Real-World Example: Rubixi runtime bytecode, Contract Deployment Code Rust, Software Requirements for Building and Running a Client (Node) S SafeMath library, Preventative Techniques salts, From mnemonic to seed Satoshi Nakamoto, Quick Glossary SchellingCoin protocol, Decentralized Oracles Schneier, Bruce, Cryptographic Hash Functions SECG (Standards for Efficient Cryptography Group), Generating a Public Key secp256k1 elliptic curve, Elliptic Curve Cryptography Explained-Elliptic Curve Cryptography Explained, Generating a Public Key, Elliptic Curve Libraries secret keys, Quick Glossary(see also private keys) Secure Hash Algorithm (see SHA entries) security (smart contracts), Smart Contract Security-Conclusionsarithmetic over/underflow threat, Arithmetic Over/Underflows-Real-World Examples: PoWHC and Batch Transfer Overflow (CVE-2018–10299) best practices, Security Best Practices block timestamp manipulation threat, Block Timestamp Manipulation-Real-World Example: GovernMental constructors and contract name-change threat, Constructors with Care contract libraries for, Contract Libraries default visibility specifier threat, Default Visibilities-Real-World Example: Parity Multisig Wallet (First Hack) DELEGATECALL opcode threat, DELEGATECALL-Real-World Example: Parity Multisig Wallet (Second Hack) denial of service attacks, Denial of Service (DoS)-Real-World Examples: GovernMental entropy illusion threat, Entropy Illusion external contract referencing threat, External Contract Referencing-Real-World Example: Reentrancy Honey Pot floating-point problem, Floating Point and Precision-Real-World Example: Ethstick race conditions/front running threat, Race Conditions/Front Running-Real-World Examples: ERC20 and Bancor reentrancy attacks, Reentrancy-Real-World Example: The DAO risks and antipatterns, Security Risks and Antipatterns-Preventative Techniques short address/parameter attack, Short Address/Parameter Attack token standard implementation choices, Security by Maturity tx.origin authentication threat, Tx.Origin Authentication-Preventative Techniques unchecked CALL return value threat, Unchecked CALL Return Values-Real-World Example: Etherpot and King of the Ether unexpected ether threat, Unexpected Ether-Further Examples uninitialized storage pointer threat, Uninitialized Storage Pointers-Real-World Examples: OpenAddressLottery and CryptoRoulette Honey Pots seeded wallets (see deterministic wallets) seeds, Quick Glossary(see also root seeds) deriving from mnemonic code words, From mnemonic to seed mnemonic code words for, Wallet Technology Overview, Seeds and Mnemonic Codes (BIP-39)(see also mnemonic code words) optional passphrase with, Optional passphrase in BIP-39 selfdestruct function, Contract Constructor and selfdestruct, The Vulnerability SELFDESTRUCT opcode, Life Cycle of a Smart Contract, Contract Constructor and selfdestruct semantic versioning, Selecting a Version of Solidity Serenity, Quick Glossary, Ethereum’s Four Stages of Development Serpent, Quick Glossary, Introduction to Ethereum High-Level Languages SGX (Software Guard eXtensions), Data Authentication SHA (Secure Hash Algorithm), Quick Glossary SHA-3 Hash Function, Ethereum’s Cryptographic Hash Function: Keccak-256 shell commands, Software Requirements for Building and Running a Client (Node) short address/parameter attack, Short Address/Parameter Attackpreventative techniques, Preventative Techniques vulnerability, The Vulnerability side effects, Introduction to Ethereum High-Level Languages single-instance private blockchain, Local Blockchain Simulation Advantages and Disadvantages singleton, Quick Glossary smart contracts, Smart Contracts and Solidity-ConclusionsABI, The Ethereum Contract ABI-Selecting a Solidity Compiler and Language Version addressing an existing instance, Addressing an existing instance and Ethereum high-level languages, Introduction to Ethereum High-Level Languages-Introduction to Ethereum High-Level Languages as DApp backend, Backend (Smart Contract), Auction DApp: Backend Smart Contracts-DApp governance basics, Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) and Contracts building with Solidity, Building a Smart Contract with Solidity-Conclusions call method, Raw call, delegatecall-Raw call, delegatecall calling other contracts from within a contract, Calling Other Contracts (send, call, callcode, delegatecall)-Raw call, delegatecall constructor function, Contract Constructor and selfdestruct creating new instance, Creating a new instance defined, Quick Glossary, Quick Glossary, What Is a Smart Contract? delegatecall method, Raw call, delegatecall deleting, Life Cycle of a Smart Contract EOAs compared to, Smart Contracts and Solidity ether and, Introducing the World Computer gas considerations, Gas Considerations-Estimating Gas Cost inheritance, Contract Inheritance-Contract Inheritance life cycle of, Life Cycle of a Smart Contract on-platform libraries, Contract Libraries security, Smart Contract Security-Conclusions Solidity and, Building a Smart Contract with Solidity-Compiling with the Solidity Compiler (solc) test frameworks, Testing Smart Contracts-Ganache: A Local Test Blockchain transmitting data payload to, Transmitting a Data Payload to an EOA or Contract-Transmitting a Data Payload to an EOA or Contract transmitting value to, Transmitting Value to EOAs and Contracts using Truffle to deploy, Using truffle to deploy a contract Vyper and (see Vyper) smartphones (see mobile (smartphone) wallets) Snowden, Edward, Ethereum’s Cryptographic Hash Function: Keccak-256 Software Guard eXtensions (SGX), Data Authentication solc (Solidity compiler), Compiling with the Solidity Compiler (solc) Solidity, Introduction to Ethereum High-Level Languagesadding constructor/selfdestruct to faucet example, Adding a Constructor and selfdestruct to Our Faucet Example building a smart contract with, Building a Smart Contract with Solidity-Conclusions calling other contracts from within a contract, Calling Other Contracts (send, call, callcode, delegatecall)-Raw call, delegatecall class inheritance, Class Inheritance compiling source file to EVM bytecode, Compiling Solidity to EVM Bytecode-Compiling Solidity to EVM Bytecode contract constructor function, Contract Constructor and selfdestruct contract definition, Contract Definition contract destruction, Contract Constructor and selfdestruct contract inheritance, Contract Inheritance-Contract Inheritance data types, Data Types-Data Types default visibility specifier problem, Default Visibilities-Real-World Example: Parity Multisig Wallet (First Hack) defined, Quick Glossary development environment, Development Environment downloading/installing, Download and Install error handling, Error Handling (assert, require, revert) event objects, Events-Catching events faucet.sol and, A Simple Contract: A Test Ether Faucet function modifiers, Function Modifiers function ordering, Function and Variable Ordering function overloading, Function Overloading function syntax, Functions functions, Functions-Functions gas considerations, Gas Considerations-Estimating Gas Cost modifiers, Modifiers oracle client interfaces in, Oracle Client Interfaces in Solidity-Oracle Client Interfaces in Solidity predefined global variables/functions, Predefined Global Variables and Functions-Built-in functions programming with, Programming with Solidity-Raw call, delegatecall selecting compiler and language version, Selecting a Solidity Compiler and Language Version selecting version of, Selecting a Version of Solidity selfdestruct function, Contract Constructor and selfdestruct smart contracts and, Building a Smart Contract with Solidity-Compiling with the Solidity Compiler (solc) variable ordering, Function and Variable Ordering variable typecasting, Variable Typecasting Vyper compared to, Comparison to Solidity-Preconditions and Postconditions writing a simple program in, Writing a Simple Solidity Program Solidity compiler (solc), Compiling with the Solidity Compiler (solc) Solidity inline assembly, Quick Glossary, Inline Assembly Spurious Dragon, Quick Glossary, Ethereum’s Four Stages of Development, Transaction Signing in Practice SputnikVM, SputnikVM Standards for Efficient Cryptography Group (SECG), Generating a Public Key Status (mobile wallet), Mobile (Smartphone) Wallets storage (see data storage) storage pointers, uninitialized, Uninitialized Storage Pointers-Real-World Examples: OpenAddressLottery and CryptoRoulette Honey Pots stub, Contract Definition submarine sends, Preventative Techniques SUICIDE (see SELFDESTRUCT opcode) Swarm, Swarmdefined, Quick Glossary installing and initializing, Preparing Swarm resolving a name to a Swarm hash, Resolving a Name to a Swarm Hash (Content) storing Auction DApp on, Storing the Auction DApp on Swarm-Uploading Files to Swarm uploading files to, Uploading Files to Swarm-Uploading Files to Swarm Swarm hash, resolving a name to, Resolving a Name to a Swarm Hash (Content) synchronization (see fast synchronization) (see first synchronization) szabo, defined, Quick Glossary Szabo, Nick, What Is a Smart Contract?

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Its design is biased toward “correctness,” at the expense of some flexibility. This may allow programmers to write better smart contracts and avoid certain pitfalls that cause serious vulnerabilities to arise. Next, we will look at smart contract security in more detail. Some of the nuances of Vyper design may become more apparent once you read about all the possible security problems that can arise in smart contracts. Chapter 9. Smart Contract Security Security is one of the most important considerations when writing smart contracts. In the field of smart contract programming, mistakes are costly and easily exploited. In this chapter we will look at security best practices and design patterns, as well as “security antipatterns,” which are practices and patterns that can introduce vulnerabilities in our smart contracts.

Mastering Blockchain, Second Edition
by Imran Bashir
Published 28 Mar 2018

Some work has already begun, for example, an online service at https://securify.ch, which provides tools to formally verify smart contract. However, this area is ripe for more research to address limitations in smart contract languages. Summary This chapter started by introducing a history of smart contracts and was followed by a detailed discussion on the definition of a smart contract. As there is no agreement on the standard definition of a smart contract, we attempted to introduce a definition that encompasses the crux of smart contracts. An introduction to Ricardian contracts was also provided, and the difference between Ricardian contracts and smart contracts was explained, highlighting the fact that Ricardian contracts are concerned with the definition of the contract whereas smart contracts are geared towards the actual execution of the contract.

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The following concepts are worth discussion in the context of decentralization. Smart contracts A smart contract is a decentralized program. Smart contracts do not necessarily need a blockchain to run; however, due to the security benefits that blockchain technology provides, blockchain has become a standard decentralized execution platform for smart contracts. A smart contract usually contains some business logic and a limited amount of data. The business logic is executed if specific criteria are met. Actors or participants in the blockchain use these smart contracts, or they run autonomously on behalf of the network participants.

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This shows the binary translation of the Addition.sol contract code: Solidity compiler binary output Estimate gas: $ solc --gas Addition.sol This will give the following output: Gas estimation using solc Generate ABI: $ solc --abi Addition.sol The following are the contents of Addition.abi: ======= Addition.sol:Addition ======= Contract JSON ABI [{"constant":false,"inputs":[{"name":"y","type":"uint8"}, {"name":"z","type":"uint8"}],"name":"addx","outputs": [],"payable":false,"stateMutability":"nonpayable","type":"function"},{"constant":true,"inputs": [],"name":"retrievex","outputs": [{"name":"","type":"uint8"}],"payable":false,"stateMutability":"view","type":"function"}] Compilation: Another useful command to compile and produce a binary compiled file along with an ABI is shown here: $ solc --bin --abi --optimize -o bin Addition.sol This command will produce two files in the output directory bin: Addition.abi: This contains the Application Binary Interface of the smart contract in JSON format Addition.bin: This contains the hex representation of binary of the smart contract code The output of both files is shown in the following screenshot: ABI and binary output of solidity compiler ABI is the abbreviation of Application Binary Interface. ABI encodes information about smart contract's functions and events. It acts as an interface between EVM level bytecode and high level smart contract program code. To interact with a smart contract deployed on the Ethereum blockchain, external programs require ABI and address of the smart contract. solc is a very powerful command and further options can be explored using -- help flag which will display detailed options.

DeFi and the Future of Finance
by Campbell R. Harvey , Ashwin Ramachandran , Joey Santoro , Vitalik Buterin and Fred Ehrsam
Published 23 Aug 2021

This new attack vector is termed smart contract risk. DeFi's foundation is public computer code known as a smart contract. First introduced by Nick Szabo in his 1997 paper,2 its implementation is new to mainstream engineering practice and thus solutions for smart contract bugs and programming errors are still under development. The recent hacks of DForce and bZx demonstrate the fragility of smart contract programming, and auditing firms like Quantstamp, Trail of Bits, and Peckshield are emerging to fill this gap in best practices and smart contract expertise.3 Smart contract risk can take the form of a logic error in the code or an economic exploit in which an attacker can withdraw funds from the platform beyond the intended functionality.

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Ethereum is in some sense a logical extension of the applications of Bitcoin because it allows for smart contracts – which are code that lives on a blockchain, can control assets and data, and define interactions between the assets, data, and network participants. The capacity for smart contracts defines Ethereum as a smart contract platform. Ethereum and other smart contract platforms specifically gave rise to the decentralized application, or dApp. The backend components of these applications are built with interoperable, transparent smart contracts that continue to exist if the chain they live on exists. dApps allow peers to interact directly and remove the need for a company to act as a central clearing house for app interactions.

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Even though its network effects are strong, some competitors in the cryptocurrency space offer enhanced functionality. THE SMART CONTRACT PLATFORM A crucial ingredient of DeFi is a smart contract platform, which goes beyond a simple payments network such as Bitcoin and enhances the chain's capabilities. Ethereum is the primary example. A smart contract is code that can create and transform arbitrary data or tokens on top of the blockchain to which it belongs. Powerfully, it allows the user to trustlessly encode rules for any type of transaction and even create scarce assets with specialized functionality. Many of the clauses of traditional business agreements could be shifted to a smart contract, which not only would enumerate but also algorithmically enforce those clauses.

How to DeFi
by Coingecko , Darren Lau , Sze Jin Teh , Kristian Kho , Erina Azmi , Tm Lee and Bobby Ong
Published 22 Mar 2020

For example, if Alice wants to set up a trust fund to pay Bob $100 at the start of each month for the next 12 months, she can program a smart contract to: Check the current date At the start of each month, send Bob $100 automatically Repeat until the fund in the smart contract is exhausted Using a smart contract, Alice has bypassed the need to have a trusted third-party intermediary (lawyers, escrow agents etc) to send the trust fund to Bob and made the process transparent to all involved parties. Smart contracts work on the “if this, then that” principle. Whenever a certain condition is fulfilled, the smart contract will carry out the operation as programmed. Multiple smart contracts are combined to operate with each other, which would be known as decentralized application (Dapp) in order to fulfill more complex processes and computation

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On Ethereum, software developers can write smart contracts that control digital value through a set of criteria and are accessible anywhere in the world. In this book specifically, we will be exploring Decentralized Applications (Dapps) that provide financial services known as DeFi. Smart contracts that are written by software programmers are the building blocks of these Dapps. These smart contracts are then deployed to the Ethereum network, where it will run 24/7. The network will maintain the digital value and keep track of the latest state. ~ What is a Smart Contract? A smart contract is a programmable contract that allows two counterparties to set conditions of a transaction without needing to trust another third party for the execution.

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In this section, we will be covering 2 major providers of decentralized insurance to help you protect your DeFi transactions, namely Nexus Mutual and Opyn. Nexus Mutual ~ What is Nexus Mutual? Nexus Mutual is a decentralized insurance protocol built on Ethereum that currently offers cover on any smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain. Here’s a list of some of the DeFi smart contracts that can be covered by Nexus Mutual: Nexus Mutual Supported DeFi Smart Contracts (Feb 2020) No. DeFi Smart Contract No. DeFi Smart Contract 1 MakerDAO 10 Set Protocol 2 Moloch DAO 11 Fulcrum 3 Nuo 12 Aave 4 Gnosis 13 Compound 5 0x 14 Edgeware 6 Tornado Cash 15 IDEX 7 Uniswap 16 Instadapp 8 Argent 17 DDEX 9 dYdX 18 Pool Together ~ What event is covered by Nexus Mutual?

Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy
by Melanie Swan
Published 22 Jan 2014

-M2M/IoT Bitcoin Payment Network to Enable the Machine Economy and consensus models, Blockchain AI: Consensus as the Mechanism to Foster “Friendly” AI-Blockchain Consensus Increases the Information Resolution of the Universe extensibility of, Extensibility of Blockchain Technology Concepts for facilitating big data predictive task automation, Blockchain Layer Could Facilitate Big Data’s Predictive Task Automation future applications, Blockchain AI: Consensus as the Mechanism to Foster “Friendly” AI-Blockchain Consensus Increases the Information Resolution of the Universe limitations of (see limitations) organizational capabilities, Blockchain Technology Is a New and Highly Effective Model for Organizing Activity tracking capabilities, Fundamental Economic Principles: Discovery, Value Attribution, and Exchange-Fundamental Economic Principles: Discovery, Value Attribution, and Exchange blockchain-recorded marriage, Decentralized Governance Services BlockCypher, Blockchain Development Platforms and APIs BOINC, DAOs and DACs bond deposit postings, Technical Challenges Brin, David, Freedom of Speech/Anti-Censorship Applications: Alexandria and Ostel BTCjam, Financial Services business model challenges, Business Model Challenges Buttercoin, Financial Services Byrne, Patrick, Financial Services C Campus Cryptocurrency Network, Campuscoin Campuscoin, Campuscoin-Campuscoin censorship, Internet (see decentralized DNS system) Chain, Blockchain Development Platforms and APIs challenges (see see limitations) charity donations, Charity Donations and the Blockchain—Sean’s Outpost China, Relation to Fiat Currency ChromaWallet, Wallet Development Projects Chronobit, Virtual Notary, Bitnotar, and Chronobit Circle Internet Financial, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity Codius, Financial Services coin drops, Coin Drops as a Strategy for Public Adoption coin mixing, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity coin, defining, Terminology and Concepts, Currency, Token, Tokenizing Coinapult, Global Public Health: Bitcoin for Contagious Disease Relief Coinapult LOCKS, Relation to Fiat Currency Coinbase, Merchant Acceptance of Bitcoin, Financial Services CoinBeyond, Merchant Acceptance of Bitcoin Coinffeine, Financial Services Coinify, Merchant Acceptance of Bitcoin Coinprism, Wallet Development Projects Coinspace, Crowdfunding CoinSpark, Wallet Development Projects colored coins, Smart Property, Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects community supercomputing, Community Supercomputing Communitycoin, Currency, Token, Tokenizing-Communitycoin: Hayek’s Private Currencies Vie for Attention complementary currency systems, Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable concepts, redefining, Terminology and Concepts-Terminology and Concepts consensus models, Blockchain AI: Consensus as the Mechanism to Foster “Friendly” AI-Blockchain Consensus Increases the Information Resolution of the Universe consensus-derived information, Blockchain Consensus Increases the Information Resolution of the Universe contagious disease relief, Global Public Health: Bitcoin for Contagious Disease Relief contracts, Blockchain 2.0: Contracts-The Blockchain as a Path to Artificial Intelligence (see also smart contracts) crowdfunding, Crowdfunding-Crowdfunding financial services, Financial Services-Financial Services marriage, Decentralized Governance Services prediction markets, Bitcoin Prediction Markets smart property, Smart Property-Smart Property wallet development projects, Wallet Development Projects copyright protection, Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection Counterparty, Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects, Counterparty Re-creates Ethereum’s Smart Contract Platform Counterparty currency (XCP), Currency, Token, Tokenizing Counterwallet, Wallet Development Projects crowdfunding, Crowdfunding-Crowdfunding cryptocurrencies benefits of, Currency, Token, Tokenizing cryptosecurity, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity eWallet services, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity mechanics of, How a Cryptocurrency Works-Merchant Acceptance of Bitcoin merchant acceptance, Merchant Acceptance of Bitcoin cryptosecurity challenges, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity cryptowallet, Blockchain Neutrality currency, Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency-Regulatory Status, Currency, Token, Tokenizing-Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features Campuscoin, Campuscoin-Campuscoin coin drops, Coin Drops as a Strategy for Public Adoption Communitycoin, Communitycoin: Hayek’s Private Currencies Vie for Attention-Communitycoin: Hayek’s Private Currencies Vie for Attention cryptocurrencies, How a Cryptocurrency Works-Merchant Acceptance of Bitcoin decentralizing, Communitycoin: Hayek’s Private Currencies Vie for Attention defining, Currency, Token, Tokenizing-Currency, Token, Tokenizing, Currency: New Meanings demurrage, Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable-Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features double-spend problem, The Double-Spend and Byzantine Generals’ Computing Problems fiat currency, Relation to Fiat Currency-Relation to Fiat Currency monetary and nonmonetary, Currency Multiplicity: Monetary and Nonmonetary Currencies-Currency Multiplicity: Monetary and Nonmonetary Currencies new meanings, Currency: New Meanings technology stack, Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency-Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency currency mulitplicity, Currency Multiplicity: Monetary and Nonmonetary Currencies-Currency Multiplicity: Monetary and Nonmonetary Currencies D DAOs, DAOs and DACs-DAOs and DACs DAOs/DACs, DAOs and DACs-DAOs and DACs, Batched Notary Chains as a Class of Blockchain Infrastructure, Blockchain Government Dapps, Dapps-Dapps, Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features Dark Coin, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity dark pools, Technical Challenges Dark Wallet, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity DASs, DASs and Self-Bootstrapped Organizations DDP, Crowdfunding decentralization, Smart Contracts, Centralization-Decentralization Tension and Equilibrium decentralized applications (Dapps), Dapps-Dapps decentralized autonomous organization/corporation (DAO) (see DAOs/DACs) decentralized autonomous societies (DASs), DASs and Self-Bootstrapped Organizations decentralized autonomy, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity decentralized DNS, Namecoin: Decentralized Domain Name System-Decentralized DNS Functionality Beyond Free Speech: Digital Identity challenges of, Challenges and Other Decentralized DNS Services and digital identity, Decentralized DNS Functionality Beyond Free Speech: Digital Identity-Decentralized DNS Functionality Beyond Free Speech: Digital Identity DotP2P, Challenges and Other Decentralized DNS Services decentralized file storage, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation decentralized secure file serving, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation deeds, Decentralized Governance Services demurrage currencies, Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable-Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features action-incitory features, Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features limitations of, Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable digital art, Digital Art: Blockchain Attestation Services (Notary, Intellectual Property Protection)-Personal Thinking Blockchains (see also blockchain attestation services) hashing and timestamping, Hashing Plus Timestamping-Limitations online graphics protection, Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection digital cryptography, Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine, Public/Private-Key Cryptography 101 digital divide, defining, Digital Divide of Bitcoin digital identity verification, Blockchain 2.0: Contracts, Smart Property, Wallet Development Projects, Digital Identity Verification-Digital Divide of Bitcoin, Limitations, Decentralized Governance Services, Liquid Democracy and Random-Sample Elections, Blockchain Learning: Bitcoin MOOCs and Smart Contract Literacy, Privacy Challenges for Personal Records dispute resolution, PrecedentCoin: Blockchain Dispute Resolution DIYweathermodeling, Community Supercomputing DNAnexus, Genomecoin, GenomicResearchcoin Dogecoin, Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency, Currency Multiplicity: Monetary and Nonmonetary Currencies, Scandals and Public Perception DotP2P, Challenges and Other Decentralized DNS Services double-spend problem, The Double-Spend and Byzantine Generals’ Computing Problems DriveShare, DAOs and DACs dynamic redistribution of currency (see demurrage currency) E education (see learning and literacy) Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF), Distributed Censorship-Resistant Organizational Models EMR (electronic medical record) system, EMRs on the Blockchain: Personal Health Record Storage Ethereum, Crowdfunding, Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation, Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine-Counterparty Re-creates Ethereum’s Smart Contract Platform eWallet services, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity ExperimentalResultscoin, Blockchain Academic Publishing: Journalcoin F Fairlay, Bitcoin Prediction Markets fiat currency, Relation to Fiat Currency-Relation to Fiat Currency file serving, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation, Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine file storage, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation financial services, Regulatory Status, Financial Services-Financial Services, Blockchain Technology Is a New and Highly Effective Model for Organizing Activity, Government Regulation Fitbit, Personal Thinking Blockchains, Blockchain Health Research Commons, Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features Florincoin, Freedom of Speech/Anti-Censorship Applications: Alexandria and Ostel Folding@Home, DAOs and DACs, Blockchain Science: Gridcoin, Foldingcoin, Community Supercomputing franculates, Blockchain Government freedom of speech, Namecoin: Decentralized Domain Name System, Freedom of Speech/Anti-Censorship Applications: Alexandria and Ostel (see also decentralized DNS system) Freicoin, Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable fundraising (see crowdfunding) futarchy, Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets-Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets G GBIcoin, Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable GBIs (Guaranteed Basic Income initiatives), Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable Gems, Blockchain Development Platforms and APIs, Dapps Genecoin, Blockchain Genomics Genomecoin, Genomecoin, GenomicResearchcoin Genomic Data Commons, Genomecoin, GenomicResearchcoin genomic sequencing, Blockchain Genomics 2.0: Industrialized All-Human-Scale Sequencing Solution-Genomecoin, GenomicResearchcoin GenomicResearchcoin, Genomecoin, GenomicResearchcoin genomics, consumer, Blockchain Genomics-Genomecoin, GenomicResearchcoin Git, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation GitHub, Blockchain Academic Publishing: Journalcoin, Currency Multiplicity: Monetary and Nonmonetary Currencies global public health, Global Public Health: Bitcoin for Contagious Disease Relief GoCoin, Financial Services GoToLunchcoin, Terminology and Concepts governance, Blockchain Government-Societal Maturity Impact of Blockchain Governance decentralized services, Decentralized Governance Services-Decentralized Governance Services dispute resolution, PrecedentCoin: Blockchain Dispute Resolution futarchy, Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets-Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets Liquid Democracy system, Liquid Democracy and Random-Sample Elections-Liquid Democracy and Random-Sample Elections personalized governance services, Blockchain Government random-sample elections, Random-Sample Elections societal maturity impact of blockchain governance, Societal Maturity Impact of Blockchain Governance government regulation, Regulatory Status, Government Regulation-Government Regulation Gridcoin, Blockchain Science: Gridcoin, Foldingcoin-Blockchain Science: Gridcoin, Foldingcoin H hashing, Hashing Plus Timestamping-Limitations, Batched Notary Chains as a Class of Blockchain Infrastructure, Technical Challenges Hayek, Friedrich, Communitycoin: Hayek’s Private Currencies Vie for Attention, Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable, Conclusion, The Blockchain Is an Information Technology health, Blockchain Health-Virus Bank, Seed Vault Backup as demurrage currency, Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features doctor vendor RFP services, Doctor Vendor RFP Services and Assurance Contracts health notary services, Blockchain Health Notary health research commons , Blockchain Health Research Commons health spending, Healthcoin healthcare decision making and advocacy, Liquid Democracy and Random-Sample Elections personal health record storage, EMRs on the Blockchain: Personal Health Record Storage virus bank and seed vault backup, Virus Bank, Seed Vault Backup Healthcoin, Healthcoin, Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable I identity authentication, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity, Blockchain 2.0: Contracts, Smart Property, Smart Property, Wallet Development Projects, Digital Identity Verification-Digital Divide of Bitcoin, Limitations, Decentralized Governance Services, Liquid Democracy and Random-Sample Elections, Blockchain Learning: Bitcoin MOOCs and Smart Contract Literacy, Privacy Challenges for Personal Records Indiegogo, Crowdfunding, Dapps industry scandals, Scandals and Public Perception infrastructure needs and issues, Technical Challenges inheritance gifts, Smart Contracts intellectual property, Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection (see also digital art) Internet administration, Distributed Censorship-Resistant Organizational Models Internet Archive, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation, Personal Thinking Blockchains Internet censorship prevention (see Decentralized DNS system) Intuit Quickbooks, Merchant Acceptance of Bitcoin IP protection, Hashing Plus Timestamping IPFS project, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation J Johnston, David, Blockchain Technology Could Be Used in the Administration of All Quanta Journalcoin, Blockchain Academic Publishing: Journalcoin Judobaby, Crowdfunding justice applications for censorship-resistant organizational models, Distributed Censorship-Resistant Organizational Models-Distributed Censorship-Resistant Organizational Models digital art, Digital Art: Blockchain Attestation Services (Notary, Intellectual Property Protection)-Personal Thinking Blockchains (see also digital art, blockchain attestation services) digital identity verification, Blockchain 2.0: Contracts, Smart Property, Wallet Development Projects, Digital Identity Verification-Digital Divide of Bitcoin, Limitations, Decentralized Governance Services, Liquid Democracy and Random-Sample Elections, Blockchain Learning: Bitcoin MOOCs and Smart Contract Literacy, Privacy Challenges for Personal Records freedom of speech/anti-censorship, Freedom of Speech/Anti-Censorship Applications: Alexandria and Ostel governance, Blockchain Government-Societal Maturity Impact of Blockchain Governance (see also governance) Namecoin, Namecoin: Decentralized Domain Name System-Decentralized DNS Functionality Beyond Free Speech: Digital Identity, Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection (see also decentralized DNS) K Kickstarter, Crowdfunding, Community Supercomputing Kipochi, Blockchain Neutrality, Global Public Health: Bitcoin for Contagious Disease Relief, Blockchain Learning: Bitcoin MOOCs and Smart Contract Literacy Koinify, Crowdfunding, Dapps Kraken, Financial Services L latency, Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects, Technical Challenges, Technical Challenges, Scandals and Public Perception LaZooz, Dapps, Campuscoin, Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features Learncoin, Learncoin learning and literacy, Blockchain Learning: Bitcoin MOOCs and Smart Contract Literacy-Learning Contract Exchanges learning contract exchanges, Learning Contract Exchanges Ledra Capital, Blockchain 2.0: Contracts, Ledra Capital Mega Master Blockchain List legal implications crowdfunding, Crowdfunding smart contracts, Smart Contracts lending, trustless, Smart Property Lighthouse, Crowdfunding limitations, Limitations-Overall: Decentralization Trends Likely to Persist business model challenges, Business Model Challenges government regulation, Government Regulation-Government Regulation personal records privacy challenges, Privacy Challenges for Personal Records scandals and public perception, Scandals and Public Perception-Scandals and Public Perception technical challenges, Technical Challenges-Technical Challenges Liquid Democracy system, Liquid Democracy and Random-Sample Elections-Liquid Democracy and Random-Sample Elections Litecoin, Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency, Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency, Freedom of Speech/Anti-Censorship Applications: Alexandria and Ostel, Currency Multiplicity: Monetary and Nonmonetary Currencies, Technical Challenges literacy (see learning and literacy) LTBcoin, Wallet Development Projects, Currency, Token, Tokenizing M M2M/IoT infrastructure, M2M/IoT Bitcoin Payment Network to Enable the Machine Economy, Blockchain Development Platforms and APIs, Blockchain Academic Publishing: Journalcoin-The Blockchain Is Not for Every Situation, The Blockchain Is an Information Technology Maidsafe, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation, Technical Challenges Manna, Crowdfunding marriage, blockchain recorded, Decentralized Governance Services Mastercoin, Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects mechanics of cryptocurrencies, How a Cryptocurrency Works Medici, Financial Services mega master blockchain list, Ledra Capital Mega Master Blockchain List-Ledra Capital Mega Master Blockchain List Melotic, Crowdfunding, Wallet Development Projects merchant acceptance, Merchant Acceptance of Bitcoin merchant payment fees, Summary: Blockchain 1.0 in Practical Use messaging, Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine, Dapps, Challenges and Other Decentralized DNS Services, Technical Challenges MetaDisk, DAOs and DACs mindfiles, Personal Thinking Blockchains MIT Bitcoin Project, Campuscoin Monegraph, Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection money (see currency) MOOCs (massive open online courses), Blockchain Learning: Bitcoin MOOCs and Smart Contract Literacy Moroz, Tatiana, Communitycoin: Hayek’s Private Currencies Vie for Attention multicurrency systems, Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable N Nakamoto, Satoshi, Blockchain 2.0: Contracts, Blockchain 2.0: Contracts Namecoin, Namecoin: Decentralized Domain Name System-Decentralized DNS Functionality Beyond Free Speech: Digital Identity, Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection Nationcoin, Coin Drops as a Strategy for Public Adoption, Demurrage Currencies: Potentially Incitory and Redistributable notary chains, Batched Notary Chains as a Class of Blockchain Infrastructure notary services, Hashing Plus Timestamping, Blockchain Health Notary NSA surveillance, Freedom of Speech/Anti-Censorship Applications: Alexandria and Ostel NXT, Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency, Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects O offline wallets, Technical Challenges OneName, Digital Identity Verification-Digital Identity Verification OneWallet, Wallet Development Projects online graphics protection, Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection-Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection Open Assets, Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects Open Transactions, Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects OpenBazaar, Dapps, Government Regulation Ostel, Freedom of Speech/Anti-Censorship Applications: Alexandria and Ostel P passports, Decentralized Governance Services PayPal, The Double-Spend and Byzantine Generals’ Computing Problems, Financial Services, Distributed Censorship-Resistant Organizational Models peer-to-peer lending, Financial Services Peercoin, Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency personal cryptosecurity, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity personal data rights, Blockchain Genomics personal mindfile blockchains, Personal Thinking Blockchains personal thinking chains, Personal Thinking Blockchains-Personal Thinking Blockchains physical asset keys, Blockchain 2.0: Contracts, Smart Property plagiarism detection/avoidance, Blockchain Academic Publishing: Journalcoin Precedent, PrecedentCoin: Blockchain Dispute Resolution, Terminology and Concepts prediction markets, Bitcoin Prediction Markets, DASs and Self-Bootstrapped Organizations, Decentralized Governance Services, Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets-Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets Predictious, Bitcoin Prediction Markets predictive task automation, Blockchain Layer Could Facilitate Big Data’s Predictive Task Automation privacy challenges, Privacy Challenges for Personal Records private key, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity Proof of Existence, Proof of Existence-Proof of Existence proof of stake, Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects, PrecedentCoin: Blockchain Dispute Resolution, Technical Challenges proof of work, PrecedentCoin: Blockchain Dispute Resolution, Technical Challenges-Technical Challenges property ownership, Smart Property property registration, Decentralized Governance Services public documents registries, Decentralized Governance Services public health, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation, Global Public Health: Bitcoin for Contagious Disease Relief public perception, Scandals and Public Perception-Scandals and Public Perception public/private key cryptography, Public/Private-Key Cryptography 101-Public/Private-Key Cryptography 101 publishing, academic, Blockchain Academic Publishing: Journalcoin-Blockchain Academic Publishing: Journalcoin pull technology, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity push technology, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity R random-sample elections, Random-Sample Elections Realcoin, Relation to Fiat Currency redistribution of currency (see demurrage currency) regulation, Government Regulation-Government Regulation regulatory status, Regulatory Status reputation vouching, Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine Researchcoin, Blockchain Academic Publishing: Journalcoin REST APIs, Technical Challenges Ripple, Technology Stack: Blockchain, Protocol, Currency, Relation to Fiat Currency, Blockchain 2.0 Protocol Projects Ripple Labs, Financial Services Roadcoin, Blockchain Government S Saldo.mx, Blockchain Neutrality scandals, Scandals and Public Perception science, Blockchain Science: Gridcoin, Foldingcoin-Charity Donations and the Blockchain—Sean’s Outpost community supercomputing, Community Supercomputing global public health, Global Public Health: Bitcoin for Contagious Disease Relief Sean's Outpost, Charity Donations and the Blockchain—Sean’s Outpost secret messaging, Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine security issues, Technical Challenges self-bootstrapped organizations, DASs and Self-Bootstrapped Organizations self-directing assets, Automatic Markets and Tradenets self-enforced code, Smart Property self-sufficiency, Smart Contracts SETI@home, Blockchain Science: Gridcoin, Foldingcoin, Community Supercomputing size and bandwidth, Technical Challenges smart contracts, Smart Contracts-Smart Contracts, Smart Contract Advocates on Behalf of Digital Intelligence automatic markets and tradenets, Automatic Markets and Tradenets Counterparty, Counterparty Re-creates Ethereum’s Smart Contract Platform DAOs/DACs, DAOs and DACs-DAOs and DACs Dapps, Dapps-Dapps DASs, DASs and Self-Bootstrapped Organizations Ethereum, Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine increasingly autonomous, Dapps, DAOs, DACs, and DASs: Increasingly Autonomous Smart Contracts-Automatic Markets and Tradenets smart literacy contracts, Blockchain Learning: Bitcoin MOOCs and Smart Contract Literacy-Learning Contract Exchanges smart property, Smart Property-Smart Property, Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection smartwatch, Extensibility of Demurrage Concept and Features Snowden, Edward, Distributed Censorship-Resistant Organizational Models social contracts, Smart Contracts social network currencies, Currency Multiplicity: Monetary and Nonmonetary Currencies Stellar, Blockchain Development Platforms and APIs stock market, Financial Services Storj, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation, Dapps, Technical Challenges Stripe, Blockchain Development Platforms and APIs supercomputing, Community Supercomputing Svalbard Global Seed Vault, Virus Bank, Seed Vault Backup Swancoin, Smart Property swaps exchange, Financial Services Swarm, Crowdfunding, Dapps Swarm (Ethereum), Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine Swarmops, Crowdfunding T Tatianacoin, Communitycoin: Hayek’s Private Currencies Vie for Attention technical challenges, Technical Challenges-Technical Challenges Tendermint, Technical Challenges Tera Exchange, Financial Services terminology, Terminology and Concepts-Terminology and Concepts 37Coins, Global Public Health: Bitcoin for Contagious Disease Relief throughput, Technical Challenges timestamping, Hashing Plus Timestamping-Limitations titling, Decentralized Governance Services tradenets, Automatic Markets and Tradenets transaction fees, Summary: Blockchain 1.0 in Practical Use Tribecoin, Coin Drops as a Strategy for Public Adoption trustless lending, Smart Property Truthcoin, Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets Turing completeness, Ethereum: Turing-Complete Virtual Machine Twister, Dapps Twitter, Monegraph: Online Graphics Protection U Uber, Government Regulation unbanked/underbanked markets, Blockchain Neutrality usability issues, Technical Challenges V value chain composition, How a Cryptocurrency Works versioning issues, Technical Challenges Virtual Notary, Virtual Notary, Bitnotar, and Chronobit voting and prediction, Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets-Futarchy: Two-Step Democracy with Voting + Prediction Markets W wallet APIs, Blockchain Development Platforms and APIs wallet companies, Wallet Development Projects wallet software, How a Cryptocurrency Works wasted resources, Technical Challenges Wayback Machine, Blockchain Ecosystem: Decentralized Storage, Communication, and Computation Wedbush Securities, Financial Services Whatevercoin, Terminology and Concepts WikiLeaks, Distributed Censorship-Resistant Organizational Models Wikinomics, Community Supercomputing World Citizen project, Decentralized Governance Services X Xapo, eWallet Services and Personal Cryptosecurity Z Zennet Supercomputer, Community Supercomputing Zooko's Triangle, Decentralized DNS Functionality Beyond Free Speech: Digital Identity About the Author Melanie Swan is the Founder of the Institute for Blockchain Studies and a Contemporary Philosophy MA candidate at Kingston University London and Université Paris VIII.

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Each party must trust the other party to fulfill its side of the obligation. Smart contracts feature the same kind of agreement to act or not act, but they remove the need for one type of trust between parties. This is because a smart contract is both defined by the code and executed (or enforced) by the code, automatically without discretion. In fact, three elements of smart contracts that make them distinct are autonomy, self-sufficiency, and decentralization. Autonomy means that after it is launched and running, a contract and its initiating agent need not be in further contact. Second, smart contracts might be self-sufficient in their ability to marshal resources—that is, raising funds by providing services or issuing equity, and spending them on needed resources, such as processing power or storage.

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To set up the second condition, a program can be written that scans an online death registry database, prespecified online newspaper obituaries, or some other kind of information “oracle” to certify that the grandparent has died. When the smart contract confirms the death, it can automatically send the funds.58 The Daniel Suarez science-fiction book Daemon implements exactly these kinds of smart contracts that are effected upon a character’s death. Another use case for smart contracts is setting up automatic payments for betting (like limit orders in financial markets). A program or smart contract can be written that releases a payment when a specific value of a certain exchange good is triggered or when something transpires in the real world (e.g., a news event of some sort, or the winner of a sports match).

Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum & Smart Contracts
by David Gerard
Published 23 Jul 2017

The eventual fix for The DAO hack demonstrates the other problem with smart contracts: the “immutable” system containing the smart contract was suddenly considered changeable the moment the big boys risked losing enough money. (Szabo’s original 1994 paper noted the need to allow human intervention, though by 2014 he was fully into smart contracts on a blockchain with no human intervention possible.338 He didn’t offer any comment on the 2016 failure of The DAO.) Immutability: the enemy of good software engineering Smart contracts make no sense as software engineering. You need a perfect bug-free program – but humans are really bad at coding without error.

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Chapter 7: Spending bitcoins in 2017 Bitcoin is full: the transaction clog Bitcoin for drugs: welcome to the darknet Ransomware Non-illegal goods and services Case study: Individual Pubs Chapter 8: Trading bitcoins in 2017: the second crypto bubble How to get bitcoins From the first bubble to the second Bitfinex: the hack, the bank block and the second bubble Chapter 9: Altcoins Litecoin Dogecoin Ethereum Buterin’s quantum quest ICOs: magic beans and bubble machines Chapter 10: Smart contracts, stupid humans Dr. Strangelove, but on the blockchain So who wants smart contracts, anyway? Legal code is not computer code The oracle problem: garbage in, garbage out Immutability: make your mistakes unfixable Immutability: the enemy of good software engineering Ethereum smart contracts in practice The DAO: the steadfast iron will of unstoppable code Chapter 11: Business bafflegab, but on the Blockchain What can Blockchain do for me?

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Its key innovation is that you can run smart contracts on a blockchain: programs that are triggered to run automatically in a given circumstance. If Bitcoin is like an Excel spreadsheet, then Ethereum is like a spreadsheet with macros. This new idea was interesting enough to quickly make Ethereum the second most popular cryptocurrency. Transactions and smart contract programs (which they call “dapps,” short for “distributed applications”) require gas (a certain amount of the currency token, ether, abbreviated ETH), which is paid to the miner whose computer runs the transaction or smart contract. This also keeps smart contracts from running forever.

The Business Blockchain: Promise, Practice, and Application of the Next Internet Technology
by William Mougayar
Published 25 Apr 2016

These can also be implemented on a blockchain, with or without a smart contract. Typically, multisignatures are part of a Ricardian contract’s execution. 3. Smart contracts are not law. Smart contracts, being computer programs, are just the enabling technology, but the consequence of their actions can be made part of a legal agreement, for example a smart contract could transfer shares ownerships from one party to another. As of 2016, the full legal ramifications around smart contracts were a work in progress. A smart contract outcome could be used as an audit trail to prove if terms of legal agreement were followed or not. 4. Smart contracts do not include Artificial Intelligence.

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Writing a simple contract is easy, especially if you are using a specific smart contract language (e.g., Ethereum’s Solidity), which lets you write complex processes in a few lines of code. But there are more advanced implementations of smart contracts that use “oracles.” Oracles are data sources that send actionable information to smart contracts. 7. Smart contracts are not for developers only. The next generation of smart contracts will include user-friendly entry points, like a Web browser. That will allow any business user to configure smart contracts via a graphical user interface, or perhaps a text-based language input. 8. Smart contracts are safe. Even in the Ethereum implementation, smart contracts run as quasi-Turing complete programs.

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Smart contracts do not include Artificial Intelligence. Smart contracts are software code representing business logic that runs a blockchain, and they are triggered by some external data that lets them modify some other data. They are closer to an event-driven construct, more than artificial intelligence. 5. Smart contracts are not the same as blockchain applications. Smart contracts are usually part of a decentralized (blockchain) application. There could be several contracts to a specific application. For example, if certain conditions in a smart contract are met, then the program is allowed to update a database. 6. Smart contracts are fairly easy to program.

Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World
by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott
Published 9 May 2016

ConsenSys, for example, can architect complex relationships with a diverse set of members, some inside its boundaries, some outside, and some straddling walls, because smart contracts govern these relationships rather than traditional managers. Members self-assign to projects, define agreed-upon deliverables, and get paid when they deliver—all on the blockchain. Smart Contracts The rate of change is increasingly setting the stage for smart contracts. More people are developing not only computer literacy, but also fluency. As far as evidencing transactions goes, this new digital medium has significantly different properties from its paper predecessors.

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In Szabo’s words, “Digital media can perform calculations, directly operate machinery, and work through some kinds of reasoning much more efficiently than humans.”19 For the purposes of this discussion, smart contracts are computer programs that secure, enforce, and execute settlement of recorded agreements between people and organizations. As such, they assist in negotiating and defining these agreements. Szabo coined the phrase in 1994, the same year that Netscape, the first Web browser, hit the market: A smart contract is a computerized transaction protocol that executes the terms of a contract. The general objectives of smart contract design are to satisfy common contractual conditions (such as payment terms, liens, confidentiality, and even enforcement), minimize exceptions both malicious and accidental, and minimize the need for trusted intermediaries.

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Hedgy’s goal is to use multisig as a foundation for smart contracts that are completely self-executable and fully evidenced on the blockchain.24 Think of the blockchain as a dialectic between anonymity and openness, where the multisig feature reconciles the two without loss of either. Among other things, the smart contract changes the role of those within firms who are in the business of finding and contracting for talent. HR departments need to understand that talent is outside their boundaries, not just inside. They need to step up to the challenges of using smart contracts to lower the costs of building relationships with external resources. 3.

The Infinite Machine: How an Army of Crypto-Hackers Is Building the Next Internet With Ethereum
by Camila Russo
Published 13 Jul 2020

Fundraising was just one of many potential uses for these new cryptocurrencies issued on top of the Bitcoin network. The Mastercoin software would allow users to create so-called smart contracts within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Smart contracts consist of code that self-executes when a set of predefined rules are met. Nick Szabo, the cryptographer who in 1998 invented the digital currency “Bit Gold,” coined the term “smart contract” in the early 1990s. In a 1997 paper, he said smart contracts “combine protocols with user interfaces to formalize and secure relationships over computer networks.” The system eliminates the need to pay for and trust third parties like auditors, accountants, lawyers, and notary publics, as the agreements are executed through a computer program.

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The system eliminates the need to pay for and trust third parties like auditors, accountants, lawyers, and notary publics, as the agreements are executed through a computer program. The humble vending machine is a primitive precursor to smart contracts, Szabo wrote in the paper.5 Bitcoin also uses this technology, as it transfers value from one person to another when certain conditions are met. Its scripting language allows for other smart contracts like multi-signature accounts, payment channels, escrows, time locks, and others. But it was limited to a few uses, and Mastercoin wanted to change that.6 Four months after the July sale, Ron had become director of the project and, as he was telling Vitalik, Mastercoin developers were working on setting up different functionalities that would expand on Bitcoin’s.

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When he was finished, he reviewed the twelve-page paper once more and drafted an email intended for a select group of people he thought were in the best position to give him thoughtful feedback. It was Wednesday, November 27, 2013, at 10:49 a.m., and the subject was “Introducing Ethereum: a generalized smart contract/DAC platform.” Hey all, I would like to introduce the first draft of a whitepaper for a project that I have been working on quietly these last two weeks. The project is called Ethereum; the idea is for it to serve as an all-purpose computational platform for smart contracts and decentralized autonomous corporations, and to essentially generalize the functions of Namecoin, Mastercoin, colored coins and other such projects that I’m calling “cryptocurrency 2.0.”

The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze
by Laura Shin
Published 22 Feb 2022

“About Peter,” Vessenes (blog), accessed March 29, 2021, https://vessenes.com/about; Christian Reitwiessner, “Smart Contract Security,” Ethereum Foundation Blog, June 10, 2016, https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/06/10/smart-contract-security. 5. Stephan Tual, “No DAO funds at risk following the Ethereum smart contract ‘recursive call’ bug discovery,” Slock.it (blog) via Wayback Machine, June 12, 2016, https://web.archive.org/web/20160617173409/https://blog.slock.it/no-dao-funds-at-risk-following-the-ethereum-smart-contract-recursive-call-bug-discovery-29f482d348b?gi=2c2267d6aa56. 6. Vitalik Buterin (@VitalikButerin), “I will provide my opinion in the way that @Truthcoin would approve of: I have been buying DAO tokens since the security news,” Twitter, June 11, 2016, https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/741832934814949377. 7.

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Back on June 5, Christian Reitwießner, the developer whom Gavin refused to credit as the creator of Solidity, had emailed key devs about a bug that exploited how smart contracts work differently from real-life financial transactions.3 In real life, if you withdraw from a bank teller or an ATM, the teller or ATM updates your balance after you get your money. But a smart contract needed to change the balance first. Otherwise, a malicious smart contract could interact with it and force it to restart the process back at the withdrawal before the balance was updated. That was what the DAO attacker had done.

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As for the idea itself, one of Ethereum’s more novel aspects was that two types of entities could send and receive transactions: first, as one would expect, people, but second, and more intriguingly, contracts. Similarly to how one can exchange messages with a person or a chatbot, Ethereum would enable financial transactions between (1) two people, (2) a person and a “smart contract,” a sort of software-based financial vending machine, or (3) between two smart contracts. A contract would be a little bit of code on Ethereum with an address and balance, and it, like a person, would be able to send and receive transactions. If someone sent a transaction to a contract, that would activate the contract’s code, changing the record of the contract or possibly causing the contract to send transactions.

The Blockchain Alternative: Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy and Economic Theory
by Kariappa Bheemaiah
Published 26 Feb 2017

A smart contract , according to Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin, “is a computer program that directly controls some digital asset.” Smart Contracts are essentially the same as Apps, except they perform a different kind of automation. While the traditional Apps available on a Google Play Store or Apple App Store are useful for certain operations, Smart Contracts function as Apps that perform value exchange operations when they receive a certain input. Just as the blockchain is a digitally native protocol that is designed for value exchange, Smart Contracts are native to the Blockchain and perform value exchange operations based on the input signals that they receive from the Blockchain.

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Just as the blockchain is a digitally native protocol that is designed for value exchange, Smart Contracts are native to the Blockchain and perform value exchange operations based on the input signals that they receive from the Blockchain. This is currently one of the explosive areas of innovation and protocols developed by platforms like Ethereum are allowing the large scale deployment of Smart Contracts. Whereas a traditional legal contract defines the rules regarding an agreement between multiple counter-parties, Smart Contracts go further and actually administer those rules by controlling the transfer of money or assets under precise conditions. Using Smart Contracts, an asset or currency is transferred into a program “and the program runs this code and at some point it automatically validates a condition and it automatically determines whether the asset should go to one person or back to the other person, or whether it should be immediately refunded to the person who sent it or some combination thereof,” (Buterin, 2016).

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Using the Blockchain, insurance firms can add the ability to efficiently bring a wider range of parties together online to tailor an insurance product to meet individual needs and reliably and transparently record the transaction. With the use of smart contracts, the firm can then automatically enforce and fulfill the obligations of the parties when the conditions of the contract are met. As a smart contract provides the ability to program a contract, payouts between parties can be made once certain criteria have been met, without involving a middleman. This could also be triggered from input signals that come from IoT devices that are used by the insureds. Just as Discovery uses information that comes from an insured’s FitBit device, the same data can be sent to a smart contract in order to execute changes in premium payments as the client’s health state changes.

The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything
by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey
Published 27 Feb 2018

The key breakthrough was that this structure, beyond its easy-to-use programming language, would enable smart contracts. As they were first raised in the pre-Bitcoin era by crypto-systems theorist Nick Szabo, smart contracts are a way to express, in a piece of computing code, instructions for executing transactions according to previously agreed contractual conditions. Lawyers often bristle at the use of the word “contract” in this context; contracts, after all, refer to legally binding agreements between humans. Machines can only execute the clauses outlined in those agreements. Still, the “smart contracts” misnomer shouldn’t distract from the idea that trustfully executed agreements could be extremely useful.

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But it took a new tool, developed by a team of Ethereum developers led by Berlin-based Fabian Vogelsteller, to make the concept take off in the second half of 2016: an easy-to-follow smart contract system for tokens known as ERC20. This standardized set of smart contract instructions meant that tokens could retain a common, consistent format for both the ICO and post-ICO trading. The tokens did not need their own blockchain and mining community to maintain them. Instead, ERC20 tokens traded on top of Ethereum. They were generated by an Ethereum-validated smart contract that kept track of the issuance and exchanges by token holders. These tokens, like bitcoin and all cryptocurrencies, still needed the immutable ledger of a blockchain truth machine to maintain their provable status as non-replicable digital assets.

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It takes some of its inspiration from cryptotokens, decentralized trust systems, and smart contracts, but its approach to decentralizing the economy and re-empowering individuals is very different from Bitcoin’s and Ethereum’s. Rather than having every single transaction or smart contract instruction processed by the entire network of a single blockchain, ECSA has a bottom-up approach to decentralization. ECSA has a toolkit of programs called Gravity that builds on the decades-old “object capabilities” computer security work of Cypherpunk Mark S. Miller. Gravity allows computers in a local network to safely enter into smart contracts together. ECSA also emphasizes that communities should be able to autonomously set their own governance models.

Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life
by Adam Greenfield
Published 29 May 2017

This is the core of an idea that had been floating around cryptological, fintech and libertarian circles for more than two decades, but had lacked any practical enabling infrastructure until Buterin came along with his programmable blockchain: the so-called “smart contract.” First proposed by the pioneering cryptographer Nick Szabo in the mid-1990s, a smart contract not merely records the terms of an agreement between parties in an autonomous chunk of code, but enacts it as well.5 What gives a smart contract its teeth is that its compliance mechanism is woven into the network itself; enforcement of its terms is direct, intrinsic and incontestable. A scenario Szabo offered a 2001 conference for hardcore technolibertarians is illustrative in this regard: smart contracts would solve “the problem of trust by being self-executing.

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And this in turn means that the material performance of the contract will from time to time be at variance with what it actually calls for—occasionally, actionably so. As implemented on Ethereum, the smart contract addresses all of these formal limitations. Just as the blockchain eliminates the need for a trusted intermediary in transactions of value, so the smart contract eliminates the need for one in enforcement of a promise to perform. Consider Buterin’s working definition of a smart contract: “a mechanism involving digital assets and two or more parties, where some or all of the parties put assets in and assets are automatically redistributed among those parties according to a formula based on certain data that is not known at the time the contract is initiated.”

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The law, such as we have known it, is a purely extrinsic phenomenon.7 It cannot prevent actions from taking place; at most, it can only discourage us from choosing to undertake them. By contrast, what makes a smart contract is not simply that its obligations are recorded on the blockchain for all to see, but that they are exacted in Ether (or, more generically, whatever cryptocurrency is used by the environment in which the smart contract is running). Just as Bitcoin lowers transaction overhead to the point that micropayments become practical, so too do smart contracts lower the cost of enacting binding agreements between two or more entities, whether they happen to be “machines, companies or people.”

The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance
by Eswar S. Prasad
Published 27 Sep 2021

How a simple smart contract works Note: This is a stylized example of the flow of a rudimentary two-party asset-swap contract and does not fully convey the broader functionality of smart contracts. Smart contracts began as purely software constructs that only computationally bound parties to commitments that can be programmed—they were not legally binding. A number of US states have recently passed legislation that confers legal validity and enforceability to smart contracts. Oddly, Belarus seems to have been the first country to legalize smart contracts at the national level. Italy has passed similar legislation. The UK Jurisdiction Taskforce concluded that smart contracts may be valid under English law and enforceable by the courts even if they are not, strictly speaking, in writing—a normal requirement under the country’s laws.

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Instead of a middleman who holds the relevant assets (or asset and corresponding payment) in escrow to make sure both parties fulfill their commitments, the escrow account is operated autonomously via a smart contract with predefined rules. Smart contracts can include deadlines that make them useful for time-sensitive transactions and also reduce counterparty risk. Smart contracts are usually set up such that the entire transaction will fail if any of the multiple steps involved in it cannot be executed, a feature referred to as atomicity. Smart contracts can facilitate financial transactions. Consider an example in which Alicia wants to buy a security from Carlos—say, a corporate bond issued by Microsoft—with a market value of $1,000.

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If the bond was represented as a token, then Alicia and Carlos could create a smart contract that takes possession of Alicia’s money and Carlos’s bond and executes the swap. The smart contract would initiate a refund if either party to the transaction did not commit their asset before a deadline specified in the contract. A simple two-party asset-swap contract of this sort is depicted in Figure 5.1, although this example barely scratches the surface of the sorts of complex transactions that can be conducted using smart contracts. Smart contracts could also soon be used for other commercial transactions. Let us say Carlos wants to purchase a car from Alicia.

Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy
by George Gilder
Published 16 Jul 2018

Buterin’s meteoric rise was such that soon after the Asilomar conference the central bank of Singapore announced that it was moving forward with an Ethereum-backed currency, and other central banks, including those of Canada and Russia, are investigating its potential as a new foundation for money transactions and smart contracts. But Buterin’s vision for the blockchain has long been broader than cryptocurrency. Ethereum’s contribution, its co-founder Joe Lubin predicts, will be an Internet without “a single powerful entity that controls the system or controls gatekeeping into the system.”15 Wired magazine speculated in 2014 that smart contracts, such as Buterin designed Ethereum to facilitate, “could lead to the creation of autonomous corporations—entire companies run by bots instead of humans.”16 If you were convening a summit of futuristic technologists in 2017, it would have been hard to avoid inviting the prophetic protagonist of Ethereum.

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He shows that bitcoin nodes, compared with any other blockchain, are interconnected with nearly biological neuronal density as every node propagates new blocks back and forth to all the others through a so-called randomized gossip protocol. Marching to and fro across stages at Fintech conferences, Wright declares the bitcoin a superior platform for any kind of smart contract or “Turing-complete” thaumaturgy. “Smart contracts,” embodied in rigorous software, were proposed by Nick Szabo in the 1990s along with much of the rest of the bitcoin portfolio. They are self-executing contracts that can ride on an immutable blockchain and bypass lawyers and accountants. But to implement such contracts a computer platform must be fully programmable as a “Turing machine.”

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He mentioned transistors with gate lengths near one nanometer and systems progress multiplying software “threads” and parallelism over time. Both are happening today. Bitcoin is constantly improving its security and Turing-complete software capabilities, leading Wright to predict increasing revenues “from tokenization issuance and marketing fees,” from “smart contract and scripting fees,” and from “escrow and insurance fees.” Again and again he implied that smart contracts could be created on the bitcoin blockchain that critics claimed could not accommodate them. He ended his Arnhem speech by throwing down a gauntlet to his rivals. “I’m not going away. We will scale radically. You’re either with us or against us.

Kings of Crypto: One Startup's Quest to Take Cryptocurrency Out of Silicon Valley and Onto Wall Street
by Jeff John Roberts
Published 15 Dec 2020

It’s faster and allows for “smart contracts,” a powerful new type of computing that takes place right on the blockchain. Smart contracts work like this: Imagine you and I want to place a wager on tomorrow’s baseball game. We could put our wager on the Ethereum blockchain in the form of a smart contract. To determine the outcome of the wager, the smart contract needs to consult a neutral and reliable third party to confirm who won the game. In the analog era, such a third-party authority would have been the newspaper or a sports-loving friend. In the world of smart contracts, the authority is a neutral online source known as an oracle, and, in our example, could be a website like ESPN or Major League Baseball.

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In this sense, it served as a platform much like what Apple provides developers so they can build apps for its iOS operating system. Ethereum acted just like a crypto operating layer—recording any piece of critical information to its blockchain—and allowing others to build smart contract projects on top of it. And unlike bitcoin, Ethereum offered an easy-to-learn programming language, called Solidity, for anyone who wanted to build applications. The arrival of smart contracts was a coup for the crypto community—proving that blockchain technology was about much more than a novelty currency—but also came with some staggering real-world implications. Ethereum had the potential to remake any number of financial and legal activities involving contracts, allowing individuals to rely on the blockchain for secure, fast, scalable agreements.

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For him, the point of Ethereum was not to help big companies make money but rather to disrupt those companies by offering their services on decentralized networks. For instance, rather than storing files on Dropbox or Google, consumers could rely on a network of computers around the world to store them instead, using Ethereum’s smart contracts to track everything. Instead of relying on Fidelity or Vanguard, investors could create an automated service on Ethereum to invest and pay out funds according to the terms of a smart contract. In Vitalik’s view, Ethereum was not just a new technology but a way to reallocate global power structures. “Ultimately power is a zero-sum game,” he told Wired magazine “And if you talk about empowering the little guy, as much as you want to couch it in flowery terminology that makes it sound fluffy and good, you are necessarily disempowering the big guy.

The Currency Cold War: Cash and Cryptography, Hash Rates and Hegemony
by David G. W. Birch
Published 14 Apr 2020

ERC-20 defined a way of creating a standard form of token using ‘smart contracts’ on the Ethereum blockchain. Please note, once again, that smart contracts are not contracts at all because there is no possibility of uncertainty in their execution, and thus no compliance; strictly speaking, they are just automaticity created by the consensus-forming process. The inventor of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, says as much: ‘I now regret calling the objects in Ethereum “contracts” as you’re meant to think of them as arbitrary programs and not smart contracts specifically’ (DuPont and Maurer 2015). He later said that ‘persistent scripts’ might have been a better name, and I agree.

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ERC-20 tokens are a kind of fungible value that are exchanged between these persistent scripts: a practical implementation of digital bearer claims on assets with no clearing or settlement involved in their exchange (and, hence, a more efficient marketplace for their trading).11 Picture this: I want to license some IBM software for IBM$100, so I tell my smart contract to send this value to an IBM smart contract. The IBM smart contract then gives me permission to use the software. Using these tokens, it will be possible to implement the programmable money of the future (‘this money cannot be used before 1 January 2021’ and so on): the smart monies that people have been thinking about for two decades.

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The cryptocurrency fanatics focus on the uncensorability of permissionless blockchains as the key factor needed to build a digital currency, but I think the technology will be adopted for other reasons. The transparency and automation associated with having smart contracts, APIs and the ability to constantly monitor ledgers mean that we will no longer need to wait until the end of the reporting period to conduct an audit or to produce its results with the help of skilled financial professionals. Instead, we will find ourselves in an era of ambient accountability, where the technological architecture supports constant verification and validation. It simply will not be possible to write a smart contract that is beyond the bounds of regulation (back to ‘code is law’)41, and if you want to check whether a bank is solvent before you deposit your life savings there, you will be able to do so by using an app on your smartphone, not by looking at a year-old auditor’s report covering figures from many months ago and filtered through many levels of management.

Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future
by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson
Published 26 Jun 2017

Or that the publisher will actually raise our royalty rate if we meet the hardcover sales target, since that increase is part of the immutable code.‡‡‡ We don’t even need to trust that the courts in our area will be competent, impartial, and expedient, since the smart contract doesn’t rely on them to enforce its terms or verify its legitimacy. This contract just exists and runs on the blockchain, taking advantage of its openness, verifiability, and immutability. In 1996, smart-contract pioneer Nick Szabo wrote, A broad statement of the key idea of smart contracts, then, is to say that contracts should be embedded in the world. The mechanisms of the world should be structured in such a way as to make the contracts (a) robust against naive vandalism, and (b) robust against sophisticated, incentive compatible (rational) breach.

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Entrepreneurs, programmers, and visionaries took notice, and efforts to combine distributed ledgers and smart contracts blossomed. By the end of 2016, the best known of these was probably Ethereum, which described itself as “a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference.” A number of ambitious efforts were launched on the Ethereum platform, one of which we’ll encounter in the next chapter. Toppling the Stacks: The Crypto Assault on the Core At least some efforts involving cryptocurrencies, distributed ledgers, and smart contracts seemed to be motivated by a desire to decentralize activities and information that had previously been concentrated, and to explicitly favor the crowd over the core.

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Having control over Bitcoin and the blockchain behind the great firewall of China, many felt, would turn the dream into a nightmare. The Technologies of Disruption . . . The troubles experienced by The DAO and the Bitcoin-mining network highlight a fundamental question about the rise of cryptocurrencies, smart contracts, powerful platforms, and other recent digital developments. The question, which we posed at the start of this chapter, is a simple one: Are companies becoming passé? As we get better at writing smart contracts, building networks that brilliantly combine self-interest and collective benefit, and increasingly democratizing powerful tools for production and innovation, will we still rely so much on industrial-era companies to get work done?

Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond
by Chris Burniske and Jack Tatar
Published 19 Oct 2017

THE IDEA BEHIND ETHEREUM’S WORLD COMPUTER The founding team of Ethereum and its native asset, ether, weren’t the first to dream of globally distributed computer programs, or what are commonly referred to as smart contracts. For example, Nick Szabo, who was also one of Chaum’s disciples at DigiCash (Chapter 4), had been talking about smart contracts and digital property since the early 1990s. In 1996, he published an article in the magazine Extropy on the topic entitled “Smart Contracts.”1 Smart contracts are critical to understand but have a misleading name. The first thing people think of when they hear smart contracts is legal documents that think for themselves, which misses the mark by a wide margin. We believe smart contracts are better thought of as conditional transactions because they refer to logic written in code that has “IF this, THEN that” conditions.

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For example, it can easily be programmed in a smart contract that “IF Jack misses his flight and IF it was the airline’s fault, THEN the airline pays him the cost of the flight.” A vending machine is another commonly used example of a smart contract: “IF the user puts in enough money and IF the user types in the right code, THEN the user gets Doritos.” These conditions can become much more complex, creating conditional waterfalls depending on the process being programmed and the variables that need to be met. While Szabo had the early vision for smart contracts, the Ethereum team would be the first to create a mainstream and attention-grabbing platform to execute smart contracts in a decentralized manner.

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There are several regulatory authorities that need to recognize that transfer for this example to become an everyday reality, but the point is to show how all kinds of value can be transmitted through Bitcoin’s blockchain. COUNTERPARTY: SMART CONTRACTS ON BITCOIN Counterparty is a cryptocommodity that runs atop Bitcoin, and was launched in January 2014 with a similar intent as Ethereum. It has a fixed supply of 2.6 million units of its native asset, XCP, which were all created upon launch. As described on Counterparty’s website, “Counterparty enables anyone to write specific digital agreements, or programs known as Smart Contracts, and execute them on the Bitcoin blockchain.”7 Since Bitcoin allows for small amounts of data to be transmitted in transactions and stored on Bitcoin’s blockchain, it becomes the system of record for Counterparty’s more flexible functionality.

Layered Money: From Gold and Dollars to Bitcoin and Central Bank Digital Currencies
by Nik Bhatia
Published 18 Jan 2021

Figure 15 Lightning Network Lightning Network is a technological enhancement to Bitcoin that positively transforms it from a slower-moving commodity like physical gold to a currency moving at lightspeed. And the key ingredient to the Lightning Network is the smart contract. Generally, smart contracts are programmable agreements capable of anything that can be coded into software. For the objective of Bitcoin, smart contracts are most importantly capable of escrow and multiple-party coordination. The smart contracts in Lightning Network, Hashed TimeLock Contracts (HTLCs), have scaled Bitcoin into a monetary network capable of processing millions of transactions per second. Let’s take a closer look at how Lightning Network evolved.

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The most crucial updates that transitioned Bitcoin to a smart contract platform occurred from 2015 to 2017. These Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) turned one-dimensional Bitcoin transactions into wildly customizable financial contracts, without changing any of Bitcoin’s fundamental rules.27 In 2016, a paper from software engineers Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja called “The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable Off-Chain Instant Payments” built upon all the smart contract innovation happening on the Bitcoin software. The paper was a proposal for a new type of Bitcoin smart contract (HTLCs) that enabled instantly settling payments without having to wait for the next block to be mined.

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This is possible thanks to smart contracts called HTLCs. Separately, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is a term that mainstream academia and central bank research departments use to describe Bitcoin-inspired software. Now here’s how all the terms are bound together. DLT software equipped with HTLCs that are compatible with Bitcoin’s Lightning Network will be used by central banks to launch their CBDCs. If the smart contracts are compatible across digital assets, it would enable a world of atomic swaps. An atomic swap is, at its core, a trade. It’s a smart contract that allows for the trade between digital currencies without using a third-party exchange.

The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism
by Arun Sundararajan
Published 12 May 2016

As Primavera De Fillipi explained in her influential 2014 talk at Harvard University’s Berkman Center, the risks associated with peer-to-peer contracting can be reduced by the introduction of three new provisions: autonomy, self-sufficiency, and decentralization.12 Smart contracts are autonomous if after they are finalized, the initiating agents theoretically never need to have contact again. Smart contracts are also self-sufficient to the extent that they are able to marshal their own resources. Finally, smart contracts are decentralized; they are distributed across network nodes rather than residing in a centralized location, and are self-executing. This means that smart contracts will be applicable across jurisdictions or, in a sense, will be borderless. We may thus be inching even closer toward the realization of Stanford University professor Lawrence Lessig’s memorable mantra, “code is law.”13 In this respect, smart contracts would solve a dilemma that we’ve faced since the Internet’s initial spread in the 1990s—transcending jurisprudence’s reliance on political borders.

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It’s a little different from what’s used in a centralized marketplace, and is not completely immune to manipulation.10 There is a more sophisticated class of contracts (called smart contracts) emerging for blockchain-based transactions. In Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy, Melanie Swan explains that while a traditional contract is an agreement between two or more parties to do something, in the case of a smart contract, the same terms exist, but with one exception—trust that comes from having a third-party is less important.11 This is because the smart contract protocol can specify, as computer code, terms under which certain obligations are fulfilled, and can execute actions like sending a payment or deactivating a file once there is evidence of the contract’s terms being fulfilled.

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In Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy, Melanie Swan explains that while a traditional contract is an agreement between two or more parties to do something, in the case of a smart contract, the same terms exist, but with one exception—trust that comes from having a third-party is less important.11 This is because the smart contract protocol can specify, as computer code, terms under which certain obligations are fulfilled, and can execute actions like sending a payment or deactivating a file once there is evidence of the contract’s terms being fulfilled. (A precursor to a smart contract is the method implemented in the digital rights management system of a media store and player like iTunes, where a movie you rent is automatically deactivated after 24 hours.) How does a “smart contract” manage to accomplish this? As Primavera De Fillipi explained in her influential 2014 talk at Harvard University’s Berkman Center, the risks associated with peer-to-peer contracting can be reduced by the introduction of three new provisions: autonomy, self-sufficiency, and decentralization.12 Smart contracts are autonomous if after they are finalized, the initiating agents theoretically never need to have contact again.

Blockchain Basics: A Non-Technical Introduction in 25 Steps
by Daniel Drescher
Published 16 Mar 2017

That insight led to the development of smart contracts that are executed by the blockchain. Similar to transaction data, smart contracts are machine-readable descriptions of the will of the involved parties. But unlike simple transaction data, smart contracts are much more flexible regarding the objects, subjects, actions, and conditions that can be used to describe the desired transfer of ownership. From a technical point of view, smart contracts are self-contained computer programs written in a blockchain-specific programming language. In order to accommodate smart contracts, the blockchain technology has been extended by the capability to execute programming code.

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In search of an understandable consensus algorithm. In Proceeding of 2014 USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX ATC 14). 2014. 15Buterin, Vitalik. A next-generation smart contract and decentralized application platform. White paper. 2014. Blockchain Basics 241 The ability to run program code has opened up the possibilities for application development on the blockchain instead of just maintaining simple transaction data. When talking about smart contracts, we need to be careful; although the term initially implied a contract between counterparties, it is now used to refer to a piece of code that is managed and executed in an appropriated blockchain.

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However, there are moves from the legal profession to develop something more akin to that initial idea based on the idea of Ricardian contracts. 16 Due to their flexibility, smart contracts can be used to describe a wide range of real-world contracts such as paying rent on a regular basis, taking out a loan, repaying a loan, placing and settling complex bets, and issuing insurance payments on the occurrence of damages or complex events. As a result, the smart contract is the most important and promising development of the blockchain in the past few years. Inventory Data The initial blockchain as discussed in the preceding steps is concerned with maintaining the integrity of an immutable append-only data store that can be used among others for maintaining the whole history of transaction data.

The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality
by Katharina Pistor
Published 27 May 2019

A blockchain is a tamper-proof ledger that contains a complete history of all state changes in transactions that take place on it.2 Smart contracts are pieces of code set to execute on the blockchain. Since every action on the blockchain is recorded automatically, blockchain-based smart contracts create an unprecedented level of granularity, completeness, and trustworthiness in the data gathered. A blockchain typically can only be written onto; it cannot be modified. Because they do not allow parties to back out from existing commitments, smart contracts that are written on blockchain create even more binding commitments than do legal contracts. By transacting through blockchain-based smart contracts, participants agree to a set of coded rules that are enforced by deterministic computers.

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They are negotiating with state regulators and they are employing intellectual property law to enclose the digital space to their advantage. The race has not been decided yet; but if I had to place a bet, I would put it on an elite group among the “incumbents”; they will do everything to enclose the digital code in law and leave little space to the digital utopists. Smart Contracts A smart contract is a contract written in digits; in its simplest form it is a generic computer program that codes legal contracts in digits. Blockchain technology, however, makes it possible to go a step further yet and bears the promise that we can do without the apparatus of law and law enforcement.

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Contracts are meant to be kept, but they are incomplete, and parties will renegotiate them when confronted with radically altered circumstances. Most legal systems have even formalized such opt-outs, by creating doctrinal or even statutory opt-outs from binding contracts.13 For smart contracts to match legal contracts on this front, they would have to acquire the capacity to adapt to future change. Some digital coders are already on the task, including for blockchain-based smart contracts. In an attempt to square the circle between immutability and the need to respond to unforeseeable change, they have re-invented a problem solver from our archaic past, the oracle. Before humans mastered medicine and science, they would address an oracle—often depicted as an agent of a god—to find answers to which they themselves had none.

The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking
by Saifedean Ammous
Published 23 Mar 2018

Contracts Currently, contracts are drafted by lawyers, judged by courts, and enforced by the police. Smart contract cryptographic systems such as Ethereum encode contracts into a blockchain to make them self‐executing, with no possibility for appeal or reversal and beyond the reach of courts and police. “Code is law” is a motto used by smart contract programmers. The problem with this concept is that the language lawyers use to draft contracts is understood by far more people than the code language used by smart contract drafters. There are probably only a few hundred people worldwide with the technical expertise to fully understand the implications of a smart contract, and even they could miss glaring software bugs.

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This problem is more pronounced for digital currencies that begin with an Initial Coin Offering, which creates a highly visible group of developers communicating publicly with investors, making the entire project effectively a centralized project. The trials and tribulations of Ethereum, the largest coin in terms of market value after Bitcoin, illustrate this point vividly. The Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) was the first implementation of smart contracts on the Ethereum network. After more than $150 million was invested in this smart contract, an attacker was able to execute the code in a way that diverted around one‐third of all the DAO's assets to his own account. It would be arguably inaccurate to describe this attack as a theft, because all the depositors had accepted that their money will be controlled by the code and nothing else, and the attacker had done nothing but execute the code as it was accepted by the depositors.

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Even as more people become proficient in the programming languages necessary to operate these contracts, the few people who are most proficient at it will by definition continue to have an advantage over the rest. Code competence will always offer a strategic advantage to the most proficient over everyone else. This all became apparent with the first implementation of smart contracts on the Ethereum network, the Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). After more than $150 million was invested in this smart contract, an attacker was able to execute the code in a way that diverted around a third of all the DAO's assets to his own account. It would be arguably inaccurate to describe this attack as a theft, because all the depositors had accepted that their money would be controlled by the code and nothing else, and the attacker had done nothing but execute the code as it was accepted by the depositors.

Bitcoin: The Future of Money?
by Dominic Frisby
Published 1 Nov 2014

Here are just some of the subjects he covered: ecommerce, commodity speculation, internet security, mining the ocean beds, the hourglass, micropayments, insurance, smart contracts, law, distributed systems, financial engineering, software architecture, technology product management, algorithmic information theory, intrapolynomial cryptography, gold, politics, even the United States Constitution. But the subjects that he returns to most are money, money systems and smart contracts. In this area, his knowledge is deeper than almost anyone’s. His 2002 paper, Shelling Out: The Origins of Money,141 is, as he himself says, ‘almost essential reading’ if you want to understand Bitcoin.

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How many of those who cared actually had the ability to design a system like this? It is one thing declaring what needs to be done; it is another putting it into practice. Satoshi must have had expertise in computer coding, mathematics, databases, accounting, peer-to-peer systems, digital ownership, law, smart contracts, cryptography and monetary history. He had to have had experience in academia. The act of submitting a white paper, its presentation, the impeccable referencing – it all denotes academia, even government. It’s also easy to infer from the way Bitcoin was launched that Satoshi had experience in open-source tech start-ups.

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There was room in his life for another big project. Indeed, in spring 2008, Szabo was actively looking for work. He wrote on his blog, ‘I am now publicly offering my consulting services. Besides topics I regularly blog about, my expertise includes technology product management (especially for e-commerce and wireless products and services), smart contracts, financial engineering, software architecture and engineering, and computer/network security. I can travel just about anywhere.’154 All of these, incidentally, are areas of expertise Bitcoin’s inventor would have needed. The circumstantial evidence continues. In April 2008, Szabo wrote on his blog about bit gold, ‘I suspect this is all obscure enough that (a) it may require most people to sit down and work it out for themselves carefully before it can be well understood, and (b) it would greatly benefit from a demonstration, an experimental market (with e.g. a trusted third party substituted for the complex security that would be needed for a real system)’.

The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything
by Matthew Ball
Published 18 Jul 2022

None of this requires credit card numbers, entering ACH details, invoices, or even, really, much time—just a cryptowallet with cryptocurrency. Some envision smart contracts as the Metaverse-era version of the LLC (limited liability corporation) or 501(c)(3) (nonprofit organization). A smart contract can be written and instantaneously funded, with no need for participants to sign documents, perform credit checks, confirm payments or assign bank account access, hire lawyers, or even know the identities of the other participants. What’s more, the smart contract “trustlessly” manages much of the administrative work for the organization on an ongoing basis, including the assignment of ownership rights, calculation of votes on bylaws, distribution of payments, and so on.

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A “blockchain vending machine” would enable the two collaborators to write what’s called a “smart contract” for this arrangement, and then after accepting each individual payment, the device would then automatically (and incorruptibly) deliver the appropriate amounts (half and half) to the appropriate owner. At the same time, the blockchain vending machine might have automatically paid everyone responsible for that candy bar as well—5¢ to the person who stocked the machine, 7¢ to the machine’s owner, and 2¢ to the manufacturer. Smart contracts can be written in minutes and serve almost any purpose; they can be small and temporary, or massive and persistent.

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A number of independent authors and journalists use smart contracts to fundraise for their research, investigations, and writing—serving as a sort of advance against future earnings, but one that comes from the community rather than a corporation. Upon completion, their works are minted to the blockchain and sold, or perhaps put behind a crypto-based paywall, with the proceeds shared back to their patrons. In other cases, a collective of authors have issued tokens to fundraise for a new, ongoing magazine that is then exclusively available to token-holders. Some writers use smart contracts to automatically share tips with those who helped or inspired them.

Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud
by Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman
Published 17 Jul 2023

Not only that, but rigidity lies at the very foundation of crypto itself in the form of so-called smart contracts. Remember the first rule of thumb in crypto: Everything is the opposite of what it claims to be. It will shock you to discover smart contracts are, for many purposes, pretty dumb. Smart contracts are basically small computer programs designed to execute their functions immediately, without the interference of a financial intermediary, a regulator, a court, or the parties themselves. The irreversibility of the blockchain—it’s an immutable ledger that can only be added to, never subtracted from—and the smart contracts built around it means DeFi is far more rigid than TradFi.

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That was the basic technological and philosophical framework for Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency, from which all others sprang. Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency as of this writing, was launched in 2015. It offered an alternative open-source blockchain and became notable for offering what are called smart contracts: small computer programs that execute functions automatically on the Ethereum blockchain. A simple example might be to use smart contracts to replicate the escrow process. You could program a transaction that would go through only if two of the three parties said it should, like a buyer, a seller, and a trusted referee. This would let the contract act as something like an escrow agent, with a critical difference: The escrow agent never has to actually hold the money.

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This would let the contract act as something like an escrow agent, with a critical difference: The escrow agent never has to actually hold the money. (That’s the idea anyway; in practice these “contracts” often run into problems, both practically and legally.) Regardless, smart contracts were billed as a way to automate financial markets and to introduce complicated new financial instruments. Out of these emerged DeFi, or decentralized finance, a vast, unregulated ecosystem of crypto exchanges, lending pools, trading protocols (protocol in this context means a set of rules that allow data to be shared between computers), and complex financial products.

Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets
by Brett Scott
Published 4 Jul 2022

The Ethereum system’s key innovation was to allow people to code and deploy the equivalent of armoured digital vending machines on their network, and to give those machines their own addresses so that they could act as agents doing business with humans on the system. In the Ethereum system, these go by the confusing name of ‘smart contracts’, a term first used in 1994 by the cryptographer Nick Szabo, who also used this metaphor of a vending machine to describe the concept. If a normal vending machine is made from mechanical parts, a digital vending machine is written out in code. Ethereum has a token called ether, which can be used to activate those digital machines.

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The Ethereum team – which was led from the start by an otherworldly Russian-Canadian programmer called Vitalik Buterin – originally raised substantial funds by ‘pre-selling’ these ether tokens – like selling theme park tokens for an unbuilt theme park – and used the proceeds to hire people to build the base infrastructure, which they launched in 2015. The new system was like a blank slate upon which people could project their visions of a future alternative cyber-economy. Enthusiasts imagined assemblages of smart contracts connected together to create more complex decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs). These DAOs, in turn, could become alternatives to the platforms of Silicon Valley, triggered into action by ether tokens sent by citizens of cyberspace. Indeed, many of those creepy ideas from Silicon Valley found their way into these circles.

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The architects of The DAO did not hold back on hubris, claiming that their creation existed ‘simultaneously nowhere and everywhere’ and that it operated ‘solely with the steadfast iron will of unstoppable code’. The first statement is a reference to the dark market realm, but to understand the second it is important to note that coded smart-contract systems, designed by crypto-engineers with crypto-economics, drew their authority from a claim that ‘code is law’ (precisely because they had no law courts to fall back on). It’s common to make a distinction between what is legal and what is possible, with law enforcement agencies seeking to keep possible actions within the boundaries of what is legal.

The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order
by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey
Published 27 Jan 2015

We know that bankruptcy, for instance, a time-honored institution for encouraging renewal and for offering second chances, has helped the U.S. economy recover more successfully from crises than places that are less kind to debtors. People might balk at giving up these options; they might feel uncomfortable with the finality of an automated smart contract. Yet the efficiencies of blockchain-based solutions promise to dramatically cut prices if they can become entrenched. So, perhaps there’s a need for hybrid models, with a judicial avenue attached to a blockchain smart contract, or some other means of off-line arbitration. * * * Hybrids, compromises, pragmatic solutions. There must be room for this kind of thinking if Blockchain 2.0 ideas are to break out of the hypothetical realm and into the real world.

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Whereas judicial corruption means that low-income people in a developing country can’t rely on watertight contracts to shore up their businesses and unlock de Soto’s mystery of capital, subjecting such agreements to the infallibility of the blockchain could end all that. Jonathan Mohan, who works at Ethereum, the new Bitcoin 2.0 platform that’s seeking to disrupt all sorts of legal and contractual arrangements, offers a compelling explanation for how these “smart contracts,” each designed to be executed on the blockchain via an automated piece of software, would benefit the informal economy. “As long as you render collateral for a contract and the blockchain recognizes the contract, then you know there’s no fraud and you know there’s no need to have to trust a third party,” he said at an Inside Bitcoins conference in New York.

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Later, in chapter 11, we’ll explore how society may have to handle the painful process this entails. But for now we’ll just delve into the mechanics of the technology itself and explore the many disruptive ways in which its inventors see it changing our economy. * * * Assurance contracts are just one form of one of the most prevalent Blockchain 2.0 ideas: “smart contracts,” an idea first floated by Nick Szabo, who some researchers believe to be Satoshi Nakamoto. At its crux, this idea contends that the blockchain can replace the legal system, the ultimate trusted third party. Instead of having a law firm draft a written agreement to be enforced by a judge, if one party fails to meet its obligations—with all the costs and uncertainty that go along with those institutions’ involvement—the execution of those obligations is automated by software, with the criteria for doing so verified by the decentralized blockchain.

The Pay Off: How Changing the Way We Pay Changes Everything
by Gottfried Leibbrandt and Natasha de Teran
Published 14 Jul 2021

If both money and securities were ‘tokenised’ and transferable through crypto technology, then smart contracts could ensure that the transactions take place only if both tokens are transferred. Ransomware would seem to be an ideal application for these contracts. The crooks encrypt your files and decrypt them only if you transfer the ransom amount in Bitcoin. How do you trust the hackers to actually decrypt your files once you have transferred the money? It would seem quite feasible to put both the Bitcoin payment and the private key needed to decrypt the files in a smart contract so that they are exchanged simultaneously. As far as we know, it hasn’t happened yet – but perhaps it’s a business opportunity that the Ethereum coders are quietly working on.

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As far as we know, it hasn’t happened yet – but perhaps it’s a business opportunity that the Ethereum coders are quietly working on. Nor have other applications of smart contracts taken off as yet. Maybe that’s because insufficient assets are available in crypto form; the communities that they could solve for are too small or too disparate to reach; or the problems smart contracts purport to solve aren’t big enough or don’t actually exist. The latter may well be the case for ransomware. The many hospitals hit by ransomware during the Covid-19 outbreak paid up, trusting the crooks. The crooks, perhaps sensitive to the fact that their business model rests on their reputation for responding to ransom payments, reportedly unlocked the systems.

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The recovered DAO did not live up to its expectations, however, and by the end of 2016 most major crypto exchanges had delisted its tokens from trading. Ethereum Classic still exists, but now ranks #41 on the list of cryptocurrencies, worth only 1 per cent of the value of Ethereum. While Ethereum’s coding language is specifically geared towards smart contracts, few smart contracts have been entered into thus far. But the Ethereum code seems to be quite handy for launching new crypto tokens, as many of the 5,500 cryptocurrencies (mostly ICOs) are built and executed on the Ethereum distributed computing platform. Tether (THT) Next up in value we have Tether, worth $20 billion.

The Bitcoin Guidebook: How to Obtain, Invest, and Spend the World's First Decentralized Cryptocurrency
by Ian Demartino
Published 2 Feb 2016

While BTCJam is a middleman, cutting out the credit card and money-transferring middlemen enable it to operate while only taking a one to five percent fee from the borrowers. This removal of friction enables more investments and more payments. Another service cryptocurrencies can theoretically provide is the role of arbitrator in any transaction. BitHalo, the Bitcoin half of BlackHalo, was the first instance of workable smart contracts, which are regulated by computer code rather than legal force. Smart contracts enable the sale of physical goods without either party needing to trust the other. BlackHalo was designed for Blackcoin, an alternative cryptocurrency that I will discuss in Chapter 21. BitHalo has the same functionality but works with Bitcoin. It enables quick transfers between the two currencies.

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Despite these gains, there are some issues with working for Bitcoin that are still being ironed out. Issues with Working for Bitcoin Smart contracts—computer protocols that ensure a contract is followed—have been developed for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and are getting more powerful all the time. Escrow is very useful because it gives the worker a third party to depend on to fulfill a contract if the employer decides not to do so. This situation isn’t always ideal, and the balance of power between customer and client can swing wildly depending on a variety of factors. The ultimate goal behind smart contracts is to eliminate the need for trust. They aren’t quite there yet.

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It used early concepts of cloud computing and, had it been implemented, would have likely become a proto-version of today’s autonomous corporation—a digital corporation that can function with little or no human input—which many people imagine is next in Bitcoin. The God Protocol was intended as a solution for smart contracts—another concept later revived by Bitcoin. Szabo writes in his blog: [Network security theorists] have developed protocols that create virtual machines between two or more parties. Multi-party secure computation allows any number of parties to share a computation, each learning only what can be inferred from their own input and the output of the computation.

The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism
by David Golumbia
Published 25 Sep 2016

These rules are implemented as publicly auditable open source software distributed across the computers of their stakeholders’” (Duivestein 2015). At some level this appears reasonable, but it turns out to be anything but clear exactly what DACs or DAOs are supposed to be or do. One of the simplest illustrations has to do with what advocates call “smart contracts”: “A smart contract is the simplest form of decentralized automation, and is most easily and accurately defined as follows: a smart contract is a mechanism involving digital assets and two or more parties, where some or all of the parties put assets in and assets are automatically redistributed among those parties according to a formula based on certain data that is not known at the time the contract is initiated” (Buterin 2014).

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Advocates for DAOs, DACs and their offshoots spend a great deal of time, unsurprisingly, on describing the technology that might allow these structures to come into being. But as with Bitcoin itself, it is hard not to see—that is, if one is looking for it—the extremist assumptions on which the notions of DAOs and DACs and their ilk are built. One of the main proponents of DAOs and DACs is Vitalik Buterin, author of the passage about “smart contracts” above, “a Canadian college dropout and Bitcoin enthusiast” (Schneider 2014), cofounder of Bitcoin Magazine, and a recipient of one of the US$100,000 Thiel Fellowships funded by the eponymous right-wing technology entrepreneur and PayPal founder Peter Thiel (Rizzo 2014a)—fellowships that specifically promote the rejection of higher education, in a manner harmonious with the rejection by Thiel and others on the right wing of public goods (Lind 2014).

Confessions of a Crypto Millionaire: My Unlikely Escape From Corporate America
by Dan Conway
Published 8 Sep 2019

They hum along at all hours demanding adherence to corporate rules for workplace behavior, expense reports, travel guidelines, salary increases, and a million other things. These reports provide trust to managers to verify that their departments are creating economic value, as promised. Ethereum’s killer app is the smart contract, an unalterable, ironclad agreement between two or more parties that is validated by the blockchain. If something happens at point X, the blockchain enforces the contracted action at point Y. The people whose computers are “mining blocks” (anyone who wants to) are rewarded with a small amount of ETH for validating these transactions on the blockchain.

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In an article titled “Disrupting the Trust Business,” The Economist placed this invention in its historical context: “If double-entry bookkeeping freed accounting from the merchant’s head, the blockchain frees it from the confines of an organisation.” Eventually, over time, as The Economist asserts, “Some companies could be no more than a bundle of smart contracts, forming true virtual firms that live only on a blockchain.” Chapter Seven Taking the Edge Off It was clear that this job was more difficult than I’d imagined it would be. I was determined to make it work. The stakes were obviously high, considering the three souls Eileen and I were raising.

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They were getting ready to launch a new blockchain that was complementary and somewhat competitive to Ethereum. These guys were the real deal, with serious computer science and crypto credentials. Especially Dominic Williams, who was in the Vitalik-echelon of original blockchain thinkers and made sure I knew it. While I believed Ethereum would dominate the smart contract space, I also believed there was room for other breakthroughs, and if anyone was going to pull it off, these guys were contenders. I met them at a house in Palo Alto that they were using as an office. We talked for an hour, half in the kitchen while coffee was being made, half on bean bags in the living room.

On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything
by Nate Silver
Published 12 Aug 2024

ETH is the second-most-traded cryptocurrency, behind BTC but way ahead of everything else. And although smart contracts are a relatively young invention, there are already some intriguing uses for them. Smart contracts are the basis of DeFi, or decentralized finance—although some DeFi projects so far have turned out to be scams. They are also the basis of DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations—self-governing structures that are sometimes used by teams of investors to buy crypto assets together. And then there’s the most famous use case for smart contracts: the non-fungible token, or NFT. In casual language, “NFT” is often used to refer to a piece of digital art such as a CryptoPunk.

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Small-world problem: A tractable problem in a closed system, like predicting the outcome of NFL games, that lends itself well to modeling. See also: grand-world problem. Smart contract: A program stored on the blockchain to automatically execute contractual instructions, first associated with the Ethereum blockchain. NFTs and DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations, a form of self-governance structure) are examples of smart contracts. Solver: A poker computer program that calculates an approximation of the Nash equilibrium and thereby can advise you on the correct play. Spectrumy: On the autism spectrum.

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GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT makes julienne fries: “Slices, Dices, and Makes Julienne Fries,” TV Tropes, tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlicesDicesAndMakesJulienneFries. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT “fully fledged Turing-complete”: Vitalik Buterin, “Ethereum: A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform,” 2014, https://blockchainlab.com/pdf/Ethereum_white_paper-a_next_generation_smart_contract_and_decentralized_application_platform-vitalik-buterin.pdf. GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT an award-winning programmer: “IOI 2012: Results,” International Olympiad in Informatics Statistics, stats.ioinformatics.org/results/2012.

Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech
by Jamie Susskind
Published 3 Sep 2018

But as with the criminal law, force generally only follows the breach. A digitally enabled ‘smart contract’ operates in a different way. Rather than a written instrument, it is a piece of code embodying the terms of an agreement, possibly solemnized on a blockchain to ensure that its terms cannot be changed or tampered with (chapter two). The code itself executes the bargain between the parties. Say, for instance, that you buy a car using third-party financing. After you pay your final loan instalment to the lender, a smart contract would automatically transfer title of the vehicle from the lender to you. There would be no need for further human intervention, and no chance that the lender would renege on its side of the deal.17 Smart contracts differ from normal OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/05/18, SPi РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS Force 107 contracts in that they are based on code rather than on the trustworthiness or prudence of the parties.

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There would be no need for further human intervention, and no chance that the lender would renege on its side of the deal.17 Smart contracts differ from normal OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/05/18, SPi РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS Force 107 contracts in that they are based on code rather than on the trustworthiness or prudence of the parties. For this reason they are much harder to breach. As time goes on, more transactions may be administered through ironclad agreements enforced in code. Governments are already exploring the idea of administering welfare benefit payments using smart contracts to reduce fraud, error, and delay.18 Adaptive Law We don’t normally expect laws to change without some kind of formal process, like the passage of new legislation or the intervention of the courts.

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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 28/05/18, SPi РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS Increasingly Integrated Technology 47 it’s plausible to imagine ‘smart’ assets managing themselves by combining AI and blockchain: ‘Spare bedrooms, empty apartments, or vacant conference rooms could rent themselves out . . . autonomous agents could manage our homes and office buildings . . . ’26 Blockchain also offers a potential means of regulating more complex legal and social relations beyond simple rights of property or usage. A ‘smart contract’, for instance, is a piece of blockchain software that executes itself automatically under pre-agreed circumstances— like a purchase agreement which automatically transfers the ownership title of a car to a customer once all loan payments have been made.27 There are early ‘Decentralised Autonomous Organisations’ (DAOs) that seek to solve problems of collective action without a centralized power structure.28 Imagine services like Uber or Airbnb, but without any formal organization at the centre pulling the strings.29 The developers of the Ethereum blockchain, among ­others, have said they want to use DAOs to replace the state altogether.

Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall
by Zeke Faux
Published 11 Sep 2023

(The name references “Cash Rules Everything Around Me,” the 1993 classic by the Wu-Tang Clan.) According to its creator, a former member of a Taiwanese boy band, it was supposed to be “an open and inclusive financial system built on smart contracts.” By then, the ICO boom was over. It was no longer plausible for someone to announce they were going to create Dentacoin, a cryptocurrency for dentists, and raise millions of dollars —a real thing that happened in 2017. DeFi was different. It was based on “smart contracts.” These are, basically, simple programs that run on the blockchain. Remember that the Bitcoin blockchain is a two-column spreadsheet, and MasterCoin, Ethereum, and the like allowed for adding new columns that represented new coins.

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Remember that the Bitcoin blockchain is a two-column spreadsheet, and MasterCoin, Ethereum, and the like allowed for adding new columns that represented new coins. Now imagine if the spreadsheet added functions. Instead of just allowing users to add Bitcoins to one person’s row and subtract them from someone else’s, these smart contracts enabled them to swap one kind of coin for another, or make a loan to another user. DeFi used these smart contracts to create decentralized, anonymous versions of exchanges like Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX. It was a genuinely powerful innovation. But naturally, crypto bros quickly turned DeFi into a series of get-rich-quick schemes, just like they had with the ICOs.

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See also specific institutions business model of, 58 Celsius as, for cryptocurrencies, 110, 118 central function of, 17 Crypto Capital and, 61 effect of rise in interest rates on, 239 runs on, 70, 71 Tether and, 52–54, 56 “wildcat,” 70–71 Bannon, Steve, 34 Battlestar, 113 Bay Street Boys, 76–77 Bellow, Saul, 178 Belshe, Mike, 102 Bernasconi, Paolo, 209–210 Betts, John, 56–58 Bianchi, Vittorio, 41 Biden, Joe, 91 Bieber, Justin, 142 The Big Con (Maurer), 177 “Big Fatty,” 193 “the Big Store,” 177–178 Binance founder of, 5 FTX and, 79 investigations of, 213 lawsuit against, 238 “pig butchering” using, 181, 213–214 Bitcoin anonymity of users, 19 art by Picozzi, 205–206, 207 blockchain, 16 commercial applications of, 19 crash of, 236 Devasini on, 47 development of, 18 in El Zonte, El Salvador, 202–203 incomprehensibility of, as selling point, 16 in Lugano, Switzerland, 207, 208–209 Mallers and El Salvador and, 26 Miami’s proposed use of, 15 network maintenance, 18 as official currency of El Salvador, 199–201, 202–204 pollution produced by mining, 20 predictions about use of, 15–16 seized by FBI, 109 Silk Road and, 19 stolen from Bitfinex, 48, 96–98, 102, 103, 104, 105–106, 107–109 Tether purchase of, 239 trading in Japan versus in U.S., 86 Bitcointalk (forum), 34, 47 Bitfinex bailout of, by sale of crypto tokens, 64 Bitcoin City and, 202 Bitcoins stolen from, 48, 96–98, 102, 103, 104, 105–106, 107–109 Crypto Capital and, 61 Devasini and, 47 first bubble and, 51 hacking losses suffered by, 87, 102 New York State investigation of, 60 Noble Bank International and, 56, 61 reliability of, 48 Tether and, 38, 52 Tether’s line of credit to, 63–64 workarounds to move money, 60–61 Bitfinex’ed (pseudonym), 52–56, 163 BitGo, 101, 102, 103 BitMEX, 87 Blackbeard, 76 Blair, Tony, 129 blockchains addresses on, 102 described, 16–17 Ethereum and, 49 NFTs and, 139 public nature of, 163 “smart contracts” and, 114 BlockFi, 166, 168, 236 Bloom, Orlando, 129 Booker, Cory, 79, 91 Bored Apes ApeFest, 150–153, 157–158 celebrity owners, 141–142, 154 conspiracy theory about, 156, 157 FTX and, 154–155 Kennel Club, 144 market, 142–143, 144–145, 156, 158 monetization of, 155–156 NFTs as intellectual property, 155 online game, 154 purchasing process, 145–149 Three Arrows and, 166 Brady, Tom, 89, 129, 131 Brandolini, Alberto, 133–134 British Virgin Islands Financial Investigation Agency, 12 Bryant, Dez, 142 BTC-e, 48 Budovsky, Arthur, 37 Bukele, Nayib, 26, 199, 201, 203 “the bullshit asymmetry principle,” 133–134 Bündchen, Gisele, 131 Businessweek, 68–69, 137 BuzzFeed, 152–153 C Cambodia human trafficking in, 193–195 scam compounds, 182–188, 190, 193 Sihanoukville gambling boom, 195–196 Tether used in, 191–192, 193–195, 199 Casaleggio, Gianroberto, 44 Castiglione, John basic facts about, 59 cryptocurrency assignment, 59 questionnaire to cryptocurrency exchanges, 60 Castor, Amy, 167 Cazes, Alexandre, 104 Celsius Network assets of, 24–25 as bank for cryptocurrencies, 110, 118 Bankman-Fried and, 164–165 bankruptcy of, 167–169, 214, 238 business model of, 24, 25 DeFi and, 113–115, 117, 118 interest rates of, 161 investments made by, 164 management of, 117, 161 Mashinsky on safety of, 117, 164 pause of withdrawals from, 161 run on, 161–162, 164, 165 Stone as employee, 113–115, 116–117, 160 Stone’s departure from, 111 Stone’s legal dispute with, 112, 240–242 Tether and, 24, 25, 109, 117, 118–119, 164 Three Arrows and, 165 Centre for Effective Altruism, 84 Chad’s World, 32 The Chainsmokers, 142 Chakra (yacht), 30–31 Chalopin, Jean basic facts about, 66–67 at Crypto Bahamas conference, 136 Deltec under, 67 Devasini and, 67 on Tether’s assets, 67–68 van der Velde and, 136 China “mining” banned in, 20 Sihanoukville gambling boom and, 195–196 Tether as holder of debt of companies in, 68, 69 “Chinatown” (Cambodia), 185–187, 188, 190, 191–193, 197–199 Christie’s (auction house), 143 CipherBlade, 180–182 Clinton, Bill, 129 CMS Holdings, 27 Coinbase lawsuit against, 238 trading during Covid-19 lockdowns and, 9–10 usage of, described, 147, 159 Coincheck, 102 CoinDesk, 214, 216 Collins, Reeve, 36, 37, 115 Collins-Rector, Marc, 32–33 commercial paper, 23 Covid-19 lockdowns Axie Infinity during, 121–122 stock trading during, 9–10 Tether’s growth during, 65 Cramer, Jim, 168 C.R.E.A.M.

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives
by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler
Published 28 Jan 2020

A land registry also gets us to one of blockchain’s other advantages—it has a smart contracts layer built in. Sports betting is one example. Right now, internet gambling requires a “trusted third party,” a gambling site, who guarantees the bet will be paid. But if two gamblers can decide in advance what source to trust as an arbiter of results—say, the sports page of the New York Times—then they can build a blockchain contract that allows them to bet with one another, have the system settle the bet via the pages of the Times, then automatically move the money. It’s a smart contract because it executes itself, without need for human involvement.

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But a few years hence, the Hyperloop will be doing that trip in under an hour, and virtual reality and avatars have the potential to take that to zero. Sensors add intelligence to our appliances, but they also add hours to our lives. Consider that soon, when you run out of coffee, your refrigerator will notice and order more. A blockchain smart contract will place that order and an Amazon drone will bring it to your house. The only time you notice you’re out of coffee is when you’re moving the bag from your outside delivery box to your kitchen cabinet. Of course, pretty soon your very own butler-bot will do the coffee moving for you. Where the biggest advantages will start to accumulate is in our working lives.

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Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: At the convergence of blockchain and AI sits a radically new kind of company—one with no employees, no bosses, and nonstop production. A set of preprogrammed rules determines how the company operates, and computers do the rest. A fleet of autonomous taxis, for example, with a blockchain-backed smart contracts layer, could run itself 24-7, including driving to the repair shop for maintenance, without any human involvement. Multiple World Models: We no longer live in only one place. We have real-world personae and online personae, and this delocalized existence is only going to expand. With the rise of augmented reality and virtual reality, we’re introducing more layers to this equation.

Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition That Is Shaping the Next Economy
by Nathan Schneider
Published 10 Sep 2018

Rather than listing transactions, for instance, it can list contracts and enforce them computationally, resulting in an autonomous legal system without courts or cops. A blockchain of websites could be the basis of a more secure kind of internet. “It’s an operating system for society,” D’Onofrio said. Before long, coders were sketching out prototypes for what they called decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs—entities made up of Ethereum “smart contracts.” One might code a constitution for a nongeographic country that people can choose to join, pay taxes to, receive benefits from, and cast votes in—and whose rules they would then have to obey. One could design a transnational microlending program or a new kind of credit score. In an online video, Dietz and a friend demonstrated how to code a simple marriage contract.

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In an online video, Dietz and a friend demonstrated how to code a simple marriage contract. The world’s next social contracts, the successors to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the US Constitution, could be written on Ethereum’s protocol. The cooperatives of the future, too, might be built with smart contracts, inscribing co-ownership and co-governance for vast networks with a freer hand than local laws allow. Or, as Buterin sometimes joked at the time, it could be used to create Skynet, the armed robot network in the Terminator movies determined to exterminate its human creators.8 Ethereum could go either way.

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By collecting dues and holding members responsible to contracts, a DAO could be a means of organizing new kinds of labor unions or fostering disciplined consumer activism, which had failed to appear in online social media so far. What if, rather than just indicating on Facebook that you plan to participate in a protest, you joined a group of people contractually bound to do so? Could smart contracts bring back solidarity? It was a statement of digital possibilities but also, intentionally or not, a testament to what the digital world had lost. Waldman cited such pre-internet curiosities as in-person meetings, distinctive clothing, even religious belief—“a powerful engineering tool, and we should take it seriously.”

How to Be the Startup Hero: A Guide and Textbook for Entrepreneurs and Aspiring Entrepreneurs
by Tim Draper
Published 18 Dec 2017

Now, without even setting foot in Estonia, I can open a European bank account in less than 24 hours (I did this), buy European real estate, and do business digitally anywhere in Europe. I recently completed a financing with Kaidi Ruusalep of Funderbeam, a company that provides liquidity to private companies in Estonia. We sealed the deal with a remote smart contract electronically signed on the Estonian blockchain. This process freed us from having to be on site or even from having lawyers physically present for the signing. The contract is permanent and easily accessible for each of us to see. Other countries are following Estonia’s lead. Singapore’s government has been working on its own form of e-governing, since it has historically led the way with digitizing and automating government services.

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Singapore’s government has been working on its own form of e-governing, since it has historically led the way with digitizing and automating government services. The British Parliament has begun to automate and encourage crowdfunding and Bitcoin. And both Singapore and Switzerland have innovated by leading the world with legal systems for smart contracts and blockchain initial coin offerings (ICOs). I will discuss more on that later. Japan announced that they are accepting Bitcoin as legal tender in their country. Governments are recognizing that they are in competition for the great minds and capital of the world, and they are being held accountable to their citizenry — a citizenry that is armed with information, communications and community.

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A Bitcoin wallet can be used as an escrow for a contract in transition, as a redistribution of an estate, or as a transfer agent to distribute payments, dividends or shares of stock. And we are only scratching the surface. The technology behind Bitcoin is called the blockchain. The blockchain also has some amazing potential. It can be thought of as a giant ledger, keeping track of money, data, inventory, contracts, etc. “Smart” contracts can be designed such that they anticipate eventualities and automatically distribute appropriately. And corporations can use the blockchain to automatically pay employees their wages and benefits, pay shareholders their dividends, and pay noteholders their interest and principal payments, all with precise accuracy and automated accounting.

WTF?: What's the Future and Why It's Up to Us
by Tim O'Reilly
Published 9 Oct 2017

See also http://www.davidbrin.com/transparentsociety.html. 177 “is generally bad”: Bruce Schneier, “The Myth of the ‘Transparent Society,’” Bruce Schneier on Security, March 6, 2008, https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2008/03/the_myth_of_the _tran.html. 178 “we all know where the creep factor comes in”: Alexis Madrigal, “Get Ready to Roboshop,” Atlantic, March 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/03/get-ready-to-roboshop/357569/. 178 steering Mac users to higher-priced hotels: Dana Mattioli, “On Orbitz, Mac Users Steered to Pricier Hotels,” Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2012, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304458604577488822667325882. 180 express their intent clearly and simply: “Share Your Work,” Creative Commons, retrieved March 31, 2017, https://crea tivecommons.org/share-your-work/. 180 “Smart Disclosure”: “Smart Disclosure Policy Resources,” data.gov, retrieved March 31, 2017, https://www.data.gov/consumer/smart-disclosure-policy-resources. 180 “smart contracts”: Josh Stark, “Making Sense of Blockchain Smart Contracts,” June 4, 2016, http://www.coindesk.com/making-sense-smart-contracts/. 181 a requirement for interpretability: Tal Zarsky, “Transparency in Data Mining: From Theory to Practice,” in Discrimination and Privacy in the Information Society, ed. Bart Custers, Toon Calders, Bart Schermer, and Tal Zarsky (New York: Springer, 2012), 306. 182 a perfect marketplace: Adam Cohen, “‘The Perfect Store,’” New York Times, June 16, 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/16/books/chapters/the-perfect-store.html. 182 nothing was known about the sellers: Paul Resnick and Richard Zeckhauser, “Trust Among Strangers in Internet Transactions: Empirical Analysis of eBay’s Reputation System,” draft of February 5, 2001, version for review by NBER workshop participants, http://www.presnick. people.si.umich.edu/papers/ebay NBER/RZNBERBodegaBay.pdf. 183 “the apps and algorithms provide a filter”: David Lang, “The Life-Changing Magic of Small Amounts of Money,” Medium, unpublished post retrieved April 5, 2017, https://medium.com/@davidtlang/cacb7277ee9f. 184 “the multitude and promiscuous use of coaches”: Steven Hill, “Our Streets as a Public Utility: How UBER Could Be Part of the Solution,” Medium, September 2, 2015, https://medium.com/the-wtf-economy/our-streets-as-a-public-utility-how-uber-could-be-part-of-the-solution-65772bdf5dcf. 184 “cried out for public control over the taxi industry”: Steven Hill, “Rethinking the Uber vs.

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During the Obama administration, there was a concerted effort toward what is called “Smart Disclosure,” defined as “the timely release of complex information and data in standardized, machine readable formats in ways that enable consumers to make informed decisions.” New technology like the blockchain can also encode contracts and rules, creating new kinds of “smart contracts.” A smart contracts approach to data privacy could be very powerful. Rather than using brute force “Do Not Track” tools in their browser, users could provide nuanced limits to the use of their data. Unlike paper disclosures, digital privacy contracts could be enforceable and trackable. As we face increasingly automated systems for enforcing rules, though, it is essential that it be possible to understand the criteria for a decision.

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technology, 322–23 Shakespeare, 171 shareholder capitalism, 240–41, 245–51, 256, 263–68, 292 Shareholder Value Myth, The (Stout), 292 Shirky, Clay, 27, 91 Sidecar, 54–55, 77 Silicon Valley. See economy and Silicon Valley Simon, George, 20 Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), 123, 146–47 Skynet moment, 241. See also financial markets Slaughter, Anne-Marie, 309 Sloan Management Review, MIT, 153 Sloss, Benjamin Treynor, 123 Smart Disclosure and smart contracts, 180 smartphones, xiii, 76, 128 Android operating system, 52 difficulty doing repairs, 338 iPhone, xiii, 32, 101, 128, 136 navigation/location tracking, 83–84 and sensors, 40, 41, 85 thick marketplace for, 133 Smith, Adam, 262 Smith, Jeff, 349 SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), 140–42, 266 social capital, 345–50 social infrastructure AI as part of, 353–54 business intent to make money vs., 240–41 corporate control of media content vs., 226–28 fighting fake news with, 218–20 Ponzi scheme elements, 355–56 tools for building, 220–24 social media, 96–97, 207.

Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money
by Nathaniel Popper
Published 18 May 2015

Some programmers were focused on the idea of micropayments, tiny online payments that are not possible with credit cards because of the minimum fees necessary for a credit card transaction. Others were interested in the idea of immigrants sending money across international borders without using Western Union. Some imagined the sorts of smart contracts that Satoshi had described, which would allow people to sell a house without using expensive mortgage title companies and escrow services. Yet others had a more abstract idea of a future universal currency, as science fiction had promised. IN ADDITION TO the coders, Bitcoin had kept its hold on many of the believers who were more interested in the ideals behind the virtual currency than the price.

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In August of that year, at the same time that Satoshi was privately e-mailing Adam Back about Bitcoin for the first time, Nick offered on his blog to sell some old collectible private banknotes, to help deal with “personal cash flow needs.” At about the same time, he wrote a burst of blog posts about the history of money, smart contracts, and bit gold, and said that if he could make bit gold work it would be the “first online currency based on highly distributed trust and unforgeable costliness rather than trust in a single entity and traditional accounting controls.” When Satoshi’s white paper came out publicly three months later, it cited two other obvious forerunners of Bitcoin—b-money and hashcash—but did not cite Nick’s work.

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Nick showed up at Morehead’s private gathering because a few months earlier he had quietly joined a cryptocurrency startup that was operating in stealth mode. The startup, Vaurum, was based a few blocks from Wences’s office in Palo Alto and focused on the task of matching up big holders of Bitcoin wanting to buy and sell. Nick, though, had joined Vaurum to do more sophisticated work on so-called smart contracts, which would allow people to record their ownership of a house or car into the blockchain, and transfer that ownership with the use of a private key, something Nick had been thinking about for over a decade. This was the kind of thing that Satoshi was writing about at the beginning, but Satoshi had believed that these more advanced uses of the blockchain would take off only after Bitcoin caught on as a currency.

Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin: From Money That We Understand to Money That Understands Us (Perspectives)
by David Birch
Published 14 Jun 2017

There might be a better way In a blockchain world, instead of using AML rules that impose costs and a high entry barrier (which is nothing more than a mild inconvenience to criminals but a serious charge on the poor and a barrier to innovation), the flow of value would be policed by apps and smart contracts. Merging compliance and auditing into real-time monitoring would transform the nature of AML activities. Many levels of bureaucracy might be rendered obsolete both in banks and at regulators because of the ambient accountability******** that comes with the blockchain. Regulatory requirements in the case of cash are designed bearing in mind its ‘invisibility’ and intractability, while in the case of a blockchain the opposite is true.

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Barclays, Visa, MasterCard, Amex, Simple, Loop, Amazon – they all know what I bought yesterday, where I bought it, when I bought it, how often I have bought it and so on. But they don’t know why I bought it or who I bought it with. With integration with the social networks, however, they soon will. And they might not be happy! This suggests to me that we will have multiple monies that embody different values, and in a world of shared ledgers and ‘smart contracts’ it might well mean a type of money that won’t allow you to use it unless you have a track record of upholding its values! If you think that this is a radical view of the future of money, I have to tell you that it is only the starting point. We can think about this smart money as a vehicle for Szabo-style synthetic currencies (Szabo 1997) that could go even further and be used directly in contracts to substitute for a medium of exchange.

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Here comes the smarter money The money created by the communities of the future will be very different from the money of today because it will be smart money. Economist Kenneth Rogoff put this nicely in his The Curse of Cash, noting that digital currencies offer the capacity for more complex kinds of transactions because they enable so much more information, including a history of transactions. While early experiments with Bitcoin and smart contracts give us a sense of the direction of travel, it is hardly wild speculation to assume that as new technologies connect with these basic building blocks of smart money, a new smarter money will emerge in the fusion of reputation, authentication, identification, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

The People vs Tech: How the Internet Is Killing Democracy (And How We Save It)
by Jamie Bartlett
Published 4 Apr 2018

All sorts of blockchain applications have recently been released: OpenBazaar, a peer-to-peer marketplace that is impossible to shut down, decentralised file storage, a distributed web domain name system, land ownership records in India to combat fraud and prediction markets. Several are working on social media applications that are impossible to censor or control because they’re hosted on a decentralised blockchain. Perhaps the most important functionality of the new wave of blockchains is the way they allow ‘smart contracts’, lines of code that execute instructions automatically. They were first proposed by Nick Szabo (yet another cypherpunk who was on the original mailing list) way back in 1994.4 It works like this: you set up a contract in the form of a programme that is triggered when a condition is met – for example, a payment when an invoice is filed, and which cannot be interfered with once it’s deployed.

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The economic boon of blockchain is potentially staggering – especially if twinned with the internet of things. Imagine a bridge with embedded sensors which could detect minor faults and necessary repairs. It could also track which vehicles have used it. Once a threshold of faults is reached, a smart contract could be automatically initiated, with every user charged immediately proportionate to their use. This could even have big benefits for how government works. The British Government hopes these immutable databases will create opportunities for a ‘greater transparency of transactions between government agencies and citizens’.

Data and the City
by Rob Kitchin,Tracey P. Lauriault,Gavin McArdle
Published 2 Aug 2017

201 EVELYN RUPPERT 16 Beyond quantification: a role for citizen science and community science in a smart city 213 MORDECHAI (MUKI) HAKLAY Index 225 Figures 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 4.1 4.2 9.1 9.2 9.3 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 11.1 11.2 Total two-way trips: a) the zoning system, b) all trips plotted, c) trips associated with Westminster (the centre), d) trips associated with Hillingdon (Heathrow) Total two-way trips: a) the fine-scale zoning system, b) trips associated with an inner-city ward, c) trips associated with Heathrow airport Predicted against observed data: a) origin employments, b) destination working populations, c) trips from work to home The density of the scatter: different patterns at different scales Visualizing big data in tens of millions or more of transport flows Visualizations of the flows on the rail segments during a working day Urban control rooms: (a) Rio de Janeiro, (b) Dublin A data assemblage City dashboards: (a) Dublin (an analytical dashboard), (b) London (a city at a glance dashboard) Mapping the same data at three different administrative scales Boston City Score Part of OGC Web Services framework (OWS) Operations of WFS Operations of WMS Operations of WPS (synchronous mode) Organizational Service Layer in an organization Smartphone screenshot of the GeoCoins software featuring bags of coins, and red and green GPS hotspots Screenshot taken from smartphone displaying the Civic Blocks software in use 35 36 37 37 38 41 47 50 112 119 121 131 132 133 134 137 149 151 xvi Figures 11.3 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 13.8 16.1 Still from the Handfastr video developed by participants to describe how their prototype software allows people to form temporary smart contracts for shared banking and spending Translation and transduction of data and the city Basic schematic of the OSi data model From Ireland in maps to databased Ireland Selection of polygon based topological relations in the Prime2 model Basic schematic of the OSi data model with object titles Kitchin’s socio-technological assemblage A draft genealogy of the OSi Prime2 data model Modified dynamic nominalism and making of spaces framework Public Lab map archive 152 171 172 175 176 176 180 181 182 220 Tables 4.1 6.1 10.1 10.2 10.3 Movement and location tracking The ‘more than’ requirements for a data-encounter model of urban data provenance Service orientation principles Potential users and client applications for various service types in a city Details about various binding types 53 80 128 137 138 Contributors Pouria Amirian, Ordnance Survey, Southampton, UK.

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Through the technical support of Hadi, the team were able to design a fully working prototype that allowed workshop attendees to spend their votes on social projects in the local area (see Figure 11.2). The team also produced a short video explaining the principles of the platform: https://vimeo.com/163760240. HandFastr (Project Team: Corina Angheloiu, Max Dovey, James Stewart) The second group became very interested in the potential for the blockchain to record smart contracts that could reconfigure social pledges and transform spending powers. Adopting marriage as a social contract, the team designed a mechanism to support social economic bonds in the form of temporary mobile agreements using smartphones. As explained by Max Dovey, a member of the team: Marriage, with all its connotations, can be whittled down to one of the oldest forms of contract that binds two people from two families to create financial security.

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We adapted the practical and functional aspects of marriage into the GeoCoin platform to enable impromptu financial commitments between people in public space. Figure 11.3 S  till from the Handfastr video developed by participants to describe how their prototype software allows people to form temporary smart contracts for shared banking and spending. Blockchain city 153 Through negotiation with Hadi, a platform was developed that placed geofences in the vicinity of the workshop that when consenting participants agreed to ‘get married’, the software would transfer Bitcoins that were previously held in separate wallets, into a conjoined wallet.

Radicals Chasing Utopia: Inside the Rogue Movements Trying to Change the World
by Jamie Bartlett
Published 12 Jun 2017

The most interesting of all is what technologists are doing with ‘smart contracts’.19 These are basically lines of code on a blockchain that execute instructions. The German company slock.it sells locks that are programmed to rent themselves out. When someone books a room, they pay for it in bitcoin (for example), and automatically receive a code that allows entry. When they check out, the lock can automatically order a cleaner, transfer payment to the cleaner and send leftover funds to the room owner. It’s a whole, functioning company that doesn’t exist, except as a computer programme. Blockchains and smart contracts create problems as well as efficiencies.

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Ninety-nine per cent voted in favour, and the UN unanimously recognised the new country. * Bitcoins can be divided into eight decimal places. The smallest non-divisible unit is known as a ‘Satoshi’. * In 2015 a company called the DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation) was founded as an investor-directed capital fund, which exists only virtually, as a series of public smart contracts. Investors can buy shares in the DAO using Ethereum’s (another blockchain) currency, which gives votes on investments. Anyone anywhere in the world can invest, it’s all transparent, there is no board or employees at all, and shareholders receive any profits directly. One month after it was launched to great fanfare, hackers and/or investors managed to exploit a vulnerability by inserting some code that redirected shares into their personal wallets, allowing them to walk off with millions of dollars of investors’ money.

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge
by Matt Ridley

Consent of the Networked. Basic Books. On blockchains, Frisby, Dominic 2014. Bitcoin: The Future of Money?. Unbound. On Nick Szabo’s ‘shelling out’, nakamotoinstitute.org/shelling-out/. On Ethereum’s white paper, A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform. https://github.com/ethereum. On private money, Dowd, K. 2014. New Private Monies. IEA. On smart contracts, De Filippi, P. 2014. Ethereum: freenet or skynet?. At cyber.law.harvard.edu/events 14 April 2014. On digital politics, Carswell, Douglas 2014. iDemocracy will change Westminster for the Better. Govknow.com 20 April 2014.

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Then there is Namecoin, which aims to issue internet names in a decentralised, peer-to-peer fashion; Storj, which plans to allow cloud storage of files hidden inside blockchains; and Ethereum, which is a decentralised peer-to-peer network ‘designed to replace absolutely anything that can be described in code’, as Matthew Sparkes puts it. The digital expert Primavera De Filippi sees Ethereum and its ilk coming up with smart contracts, allowing ‘distributed autonomous organisations’ that, once they have been deployed on the blockchain, ‘no longer need (nor heed) their creators’. In other words, not just driverless cars, but ownerless firms. Imagine in the future summoning a taxi that not only has no driver, but that belongs to a computer network, not to a human being.

What to Think About Machines That Think: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Age of Machine Intelligence
by John Brockman
Published 5 Oct 2015

Seth Lloyd’s analysis of the computational power of the universe shows that even the entire universe, acting as a giant quantum computer, could not discover a 500-bit hard cryptographic key in the time since the Big Bang.1 The new technologies of postquantum cryptography, indistinguishability obfuscation, and blockchain smart contracts are promising components for creating an infrastructure secure against even the most powerful AIs. But recent hacks and cyberattacks show that our current computational infrastructure is woefully inadequate to the task. We need to develop a software infrastructure that’s mathematically provably correct and secure.

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These examples show that machine culture, values, operation, and modes of existence are already different, and this emphasizes the need for ways to interact that facilitate and extend the existence of both parties. The potential future world of intelligence multiplicity means accommodating plurality and building trust. Blockchain technology—a decentralized, distributed, global, permanent, code-based ledger of interaction transactions and smart contracts—is one example of a trust-building system. The system can be used between human parties or interspecies parties, exactly because it’s not necessary to know, trust, or understand the other entity, just the code (the language of machines). Over time, trust can grow through reputation. Blockchain technology could be used to enforce friendly AI and mutually beneficial interspecies interaction.

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While perhaps not a full answer to the problem of enforcing friendly AI, decentralized smart networks like blockchains are a system of checks and balances helping to provide a more robust solution to situations of future uncertainty. Trust-building models for interspecies digital intelligence interaction could include both game-theoretic checks-and-balances systems like blockchains and also, at the higher level, frameworks that put entities on the same plane of shared objectives. This is of higher order than smart contracts and treaties that attempt to enforce morality; a mind-set shift is required. The problem frame of machine and human intelligence should not be one that characterizes relations as friendly or unfriendly but, rather, one that treats all entities equally, putting them on the same ground and value system for the most important shared parameters, like growth.

Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control
by Stuart Russell
Published 7 Oct 2019

And it will do that not because it wants to stay alive but because it is pursuing whatever objective we gave it and knows that it will fail if it is switched off. There are some systems being contemplated that really cannot be switched off without ripping out a lot of the plumbing of our civilization. These are systems implemented as so-called smart contracts in the blockchain. The blockchain is a highly distributed form of computing and record keeping based on encryption; it is specifically designed so that no datum can be deleted and no smart contract can be interrupted without essentially taking control of a very large number of machines and undoing the chain, which might in turn destroy a large part of the Internet and/or the financial system.

Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy--And How to Make Them Work for You
by Sangeet Paul Choudary , Marshall W. van Alstyne and Geoffrey G. Parker
Published 27 Mar 2016

Normally, when you sign a contract, you must either trust the other party to honor the terms or rely on a central authority such as the state, or on an escrow service like eBay, to enforce the deal. Public blockchain ownership empowers us to write self-enforcing smart contracts that automatically reassign ownership once contract terms are triggered. Neither party can back out because the code, running in a decentralized public fashion, is not under anyone’s control. It simply executes. These smart, autonomous contracts can even pay people for the output of their work—in effect, machines hiring people, not the other way around. For example, imagine a smart contract between a wedding photographer and a couple planning their nuptials. The blockchain-stored contract could specify that payment of the final installment of the photographer’s fee will be made promptly when the edited photo files are delivered electronically to the newlyweds.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution
by Klaus Schwab
Published 11 Jan 2016

Positive impacts – Increased financial inclusion in emerging markets, as financial services on the blockchain gain critical mass – Disintermediation of financial institutions, as new services and value exchanges are created directly on the blockchain – An explosion in tradable assets, as all kinds of value exchange can be hosted on the blockchain – Better property records in emerging markets, and the ability to make everything a tradable asset – Contacts and legal services increasingly tied to code linked to the blockchain, to be used as unbreakable escrow or programmatically designed smart contracts – Increased transparency, as the blockchain is essentially a global ledger storing all transactions The shift in action Smartcontracts.com provides programmable contracts that do payouts between two parties once certain criteria have been met, without involving a middleman. These contracts are secured in the blockchain as “self-executing contractual states”, which eliminate the risk of relying on others to follow through on their commitments.

The Internet of Money
by Andreas M. Antonopoulos
Published 28 Aug 2016

Bitcoin’s Dumb Network Bitcoin is a dumb network supporting really smart devices, and that is an incredibly powerful concept because bitcoin pushes all of the intelligence to the edge. It doesn’t care if the bitcoin address is the address of a multimillionaire, the address of a central bank, the address of a smart contract, the address of a device, or the address of a human. It doesn’t know. It doesn’t care if the transaction is carrying lots of money or not much money at all. It doesn’t care if the address is in Kuala Lumpur or downtown New York. It doesn’t know, it doesn’t care. It moves money from one address to another based on a simple locking script.

Cryptoeconomics: Fundamental Principles of Bitcoin
by Eric Voskuil , James Chiang and Amir Taaki
Published 28 Feb 2020

Editor & Illustrator James Chiang James is an open-source contributor to both Libbitcoin [10] and Bitcoin Core [11] projects. He read his first Cryptoeconomics chapter, the Dedicated Cost Principle [12] , in early 2018 and began sketching visuals to support his study of the underlying principles. He is currently conducting research on the formal security of smart contracts. James is a PhD candidate in computer science at the Technical University of Denmark [13] and a former Jet Propulsion Lab aerospace engineer. Acknowledgements This project began as tweets [14] and then posts to the Libbitcoin [15] software repository wiki [16] . Eventually there was enough content and interest that I started getting requests for a book.

Sabotage: The Financial System's Nasty Business
by Anastasia Nesvetailova and Ronen Palan
Published 28 Jan 2020

The MMM Global ‘investors’ – if that is what they were – were left holding exactly what they bought, the virtual mavros. It appears that they will hold those till eternity.2 THE FINTECH SECTOR Fintech is a technology-anchored universe that involves, among other things, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, data mining, peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding, money transfer services and smart contracts. Many of the innovations extend beyond financial services, where they have facilitated a range of new fundraising and investment opportunities on various platforms in cyberspace. The evolution of fintech has been both rapid and diverse, and it is clear that it can develop in any imaginable and, as yet, unimaginable direction.

Ours to Hack and to Own: The Rise of Platform Cooperativism, a New Vision for the Future of Work and a Fairer Internet
by Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider
Published 14 Aug 2017

In effect, the system would enable the efficient organization of decentralized solar grids, together with a “green currency” that could serve as a medium of exchange within solar microgrids or networks, helping to propel adoption of solar panels. The blockchain amounts to a network-based architecture for enabling commons-based governance. SMART TRANSACTIONS This field of experimentation may yield another breakthrough tool for forging digital commons: smart contracts. These are dynamic software modules operating in an architecture of shared protocols (much like TCP/IP or HTTP) that could enable new types of group governance, decision-making, and rules-enforcement on open network platforms. We are already familiar with rudimentary—and corporate-oriented versions—of this idea, such as digital rights management, a system that gives companies the ability to constrain how users may use their legally purchased technologies, from movies on DVD to ebooks.

Bulletproof Problem Solving
by Charles Conn and Robert McLean
Published 6 Mar 2019

It could be the economy, fashion, sports, or entertainment. Set out what you have to believe for the forecast to be true. Then ask whether it's likely to happen. Check out fivethirtyeight.com, where they do this for a living. The blockchain is now 10 years old and a promising technology for smart contracts and governance. Draw out the diffusion curve for blockchain and explain how you validated your assumptions. Take a business plan in a tech venture or social enterprise you have seen and do a knock‐out analysis, followed by a set of questions to the entrepreneur about what you have to believe for success.

Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future
by Joi Ito and Jeff Howe
Published 6 Dec 2016

Back, whom Reid Hoffman describes as “second only to Satoshi in bitcoin,” recruited him for his new start-up, Blockstream.45 By building side chains and other innovations onto the core Bitcoin blockchain, Blockstream promises to transform Bitcoin technology into a platform for stock trades, self-executing smart contracts, and other Bitcoin 2.0 applications that would normally require a trusted middleman to mediate between the parties. It will also enable developers with innovative ideas to build their applications directly onto Bitcoin, without touching the core Bitcoin code or forking over their own cryptocurrencies.

Open for Business Harnessing the Power of Platform Ecosystems
by Lauren Turner Claire , Laure Claire Reillier and Benoit Reillier
Published 14 Oct 2017

Many automated algorithms and rules help ensure that the right information is captured, that it is internally consistent, and that the parties are who they say they are (if anonymous participation is forbidden). Going forward, new technologies, such as distributed database models like blockchain, will open the door to ‘self-enforcing smart contracts’ between platform participants and further strengthen the legal certainty of core transactions. This will be a formidable enabler for platform businesses since it will further lower friction between transacting parties. Platform branding The other side of trust is brand recognition. Brands still play a very important part in the buying decision, and this is likely to hold true for many years.

Exponential Organizations: Why New Organizations Are Ten Times Better, Faster, and Cheaper Than Yours (And What to Do About It)
by Salim Ismail and Yuri van Geest
Published 17 Oct 2014

Open sourcing patents Just like Tesla did with its electric car patents, open sourcing IP will enable the creation of a much larger innovation ecosystem in which, by default, your organization will be the center. It pre-empts competition and insources innovation. Reduced IP relevance In an accelerating world, by the time you file a patent, it’s out of date. Rise of IP insurance Formalized structures to protect against IP infringement. Smart contracts Legal clauses embedded as code; instant activation of consequences and outcomes; personalized legal systems. Fluid legal contracts Flexible and real-time legal contracts, constantly adapting to new data, stats and insights (e.g., current SCRUM contracts but more advanced). Dangerous regulatory structures As technology outpaces our ability to regulate, regulatory agencies become irrelevant; even worse, they become neo-Luddites.

Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and How You Can Save Our World
by Mo Gawdat
Published 29 Sep 2021

We won’t reach that state, however, without going through a period of significant transformation. AI will not replace humans, but the humans who use AI intelligently will replace those who don’t. Sadly, there will still be a need for lawyers, for example. It’s just that we will need fewer of them – and they will be the ones who are able to draft, review and litigate a smart contract, using AI, instead of the long-winded written contracts of today. They will be more efficient than lawyers have ever been because they’ll start delegating the complex parts to smart machines. The lawyers who don’t develop the skills needed to keep up will probably descend to jobs that demand less intellectual work and get paid less as a result.

Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?
by Aaron Dignan
Published 1 Feb 2019

It has no managers, all of those processes were pre-written into code.” Developers, leveraging what they have learned in creating cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, are pioneering a new generation of decentralized applications that allow organizations to operate like that magical vending machine. Through a series of rules called smart contracts, founders can create, fund, and operate an entire organization independent of hierarchical management. Everything, from paying contributors for their work to making decisions about investment, is managed in a distributed way. Looking for the CEO? Headquarters? You won’t find them. It’s early days for this technology and the jury is still out on issues of security, how decisions are made, and the legal liability of contributors.

Hands-On RESTful API Design Patterns and Best Practices
by Harihara Subramanian
Published 31 Jan 2019

The peer-to-peer (P2P) interactions facilitated by the decentralized approach is turning out to be a silver bullet for many recent use cases. The faster maturity and stability of blockchain technology is clearly driving IT professionals and organizations toward the production of decentralized systems. The blockchain paradigm also resulted in the new concept of smart contracts, which leads to the realization of adaptive applications. Composite and multi-container applications Decomposition and composition techniques have been extensively used to achieve breakthroughs in software engineering. Monolithic applications are being dismantled through decomposition tips, whereas decomposed application modules are being combined with one another in a sequenced manner in order to create smarter and more sophisticated applications.

Bitcoin Billionaires: A True Story of Genius, Betrayal, and Redemption
by Ben Mezrich
Published 20 May 2019

Programmable money. The phrase sounded space age, sci-fi, to Cameron, but he knew it was truly the next step in the nearly instant economy that Bitcoin allowed; basically, it referred to programmed transactions between banks or individuals that could be self-validating and perfectly efficient; smart contracts that could be set in place to occur automatically, without any middlemen or oversight. For instance, self-driving cars and autonomous agents of the future would exchange value back and forth, perhaps while changing lanes in real time, paying for faster rates of travel—but they wouldn’t be doing it via wires, ACH, or credits cards, which were too slow and costly; they would have to use crypto.

Chaos Kings: How Wall Street Traders Make Billions in the New Age of Crisis
by Scott Patterson
Published 5 Jun 2023

Schmalbach had long been interested in finding alternatives to the old-school form of insurance, which he believed had become inefficient, hampered by a long, legalistic, and highly complex money supply chain. Prodded by his student, he immersed himself in blockchain and quickly realized it could provide an alternative method of delivering insurance. Blockchain offers something called “smart contracts,” which is software that can automatically execute a transaction when certain conditions are met. That made it an ideal tool for parametric insurance, Schmalbach’s specialty. If an airline wants to insure against the risk of a Category 5 hurricane hitting its operation, the contract is immediately triggered and the payment made if, in fact, a Cat 5 storm happens and harms the carrier’s business by some tangible metric, such as an airport closure for more than one week.

Decoding the World: A Roadmap for the Questioner
by Po Bronson
Published 14 Jul 2020

One night, here at IndieBio, Tall Joe hosted the first-ever Ethereum Meetup Group for San Francisco. Thirteen people showed up, but one of them was the CTO for the Ethereum Foundation. Ethereum was almost out of money, and at the time nobody knew if Ether would survive. But Joe bought a bunch because he thought smart contracts made sense. Joe took a coding class in San Jose and started buying into ICOs he thought would have a real market. He started to become an insider, and that was when he stopped being the doorman at IndieBio and became Crypto Joe. Now he’s a whale. A small whale. By 2018, he was in the New York Times, which skewered Joe for renting an orange Lamborghini for the weekend and wearing a solid gold Bitcoin “B” necklace ringed with diamonds.

A New History of the Future in 100 Objects: A Fiction
by Adrian Hon
Published 5 Oct 2020

Social historian Ernesto Morales of Universidad Nacional de Córdoba explains: The prolonged and, as it turned out, systemic unemployment that occurred in the early twenty-first century saw the UK, Ireland, Australia, Singapore, and various US states attempt to stimulate job growth through a package of enterprise-friendly measures including cutting the time required to form a new company. Instead of taking a few days and a number of forms, anyone could set up companies within minutes at practically no cost. Throw in ready-made legal structures, smart contracts, voting systems, and banking that operated purely online, and you could create and run companies without the need for any physical meetings or papers to be shuffled around. This acceleration didn’t have the desired effect of reducing unemployment, which was never properly addressed, but it did open the door to instant enterprises.

MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them
by Nouriel Roubini
Published 17 Oct 2022

The (pseudo) anonymity of crypto assets also creates data gaps for regulators and can open unwanted doors for money laundering, as well as terrorist financing.”27 Supporters of crypto dream of a financial system where all financial transactions—including borrowing and lending—occur without intermediaries. Algorithms hitched to blockchain will replace banks and execute smart contracts. Assets will move as smoothly as text messages without friction imposed by third parties. In this ideal world, dreamers forget that DeFi firms have developers and backers that, like banks, seek profits using practices that warrant regulation and supervision, not a Wild West of unregulated chaos.

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles
by William Quinn and John D. Turner
Published 5 Aug 2020

‘Public finance and economic growth: the case of Holland in the seventeenth century’, Journal of Economic History, 71, 1–39, 2011. Gentzkow, M. and Shapiro, J. M. ‘Media bias and reputation’, Journal of Political Economy, 114, 280–316, 2006. Gerard, D. Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain: Bitcoin, Blockchain, Ethereum and Smart Contracts, David Gerard (self-published), 2017. Gilmore, N. R. ‘Henry George Ward, British publicist for Mexican mines’, Pacific Historical Review, 31, 35–47, 1963. Gissing, G. The Whirlpool. London: Penguin Classics, 2015. Gjerstad, S. and Smith, V. L. ‘Monetary policy, credit extension, and housing bubbles: 2008 and 1929’, Critical Review, 21, 269–300, 2009.

New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI
by Frank Pasquale
Published 14 May 2020

But we can still trace these “mind children” and grandchildren back to their source.22 We should keep this status quo for the foreseeable future, despite predictable resistance from some advocates of fully autonomous AI. The cutting edge of the AI, machine-learning, and robotics fields emphasizes autonomy, whether of smart contracts, high-frequency trading algorithms (at least in time spans undetectable by humans), or future robots. There is a nebulous notion of “out of control” robots that escape their creator. Perhaps such accidents are unavoidable. Nevertheless, some person or entity should be responsible for them. A requirement that any AI or robotics system has some designated party responsible for its action would help squelch such projects, which could be just as dangerous as unregulated bioengineering of viruses.

Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education
by Joe Karaganis
Published 3 May 2018

In 2013–2015, he was a Marie Curie Fellow at the IViR. Balázs is an internationally renowned expert in cultural black markets, piracy, informal media economies, and the digital underground. He is conducting normative research on a number of rapidly emerging technologies, including algorithmic news recommenders, blockchains, and smart contracts. Laura Czerniewicz is the director of the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. She is an associate professor in the Centre for Higher Education Development, committed to equity of access and success in higher education. Her research interests include the technologically mediated practices of students and academics and the nature of the changing higher education environment and the geopolitics of knowledge, underpinned by a commitment to surfacing the expressions of inequality within and across contexts.

AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future
by Kai-Fu Lee and Qiufan Chen
Published 13 Sep 2021

Gripped by the sudden impulse to speak up, Viktor was held back by the princess, who was shaking her head. “I’m awfully sorry that you haven’t been able to attain happiness on Al Saeida. But as you’ve been aware all along, your data was imported into the middleware system in an encrypted form, and was automatically executed through smart contracts that no one is able to tamper with or destroy. That’s how our system was designed to work.” “We demand to meet the real Big Brother. Why doesn’t your brother appear?!” questioned the mountaineer. “Mahdi has urgent business to attend to, so he has entrusted me—” “This is an out-and-out scam.

The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life When Robots Rule the Earth
by Robin Hanson
Published 31 Mar 2016

“Time Spent in Primary Activities and Percent of the Civilian Population Engaging in Each Activity, Averages per Day by Sex, 2012 Annual Averages.” Bureau of Labor Statistics Economic News Release. June 20. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t01.htm. Buterin, Vitalik. 2014. “White Paper: A Next-Generation Smart Contract and Decentralized Application Platform.” April. https://www.ethereum.org/pdfs/EthereumWhitePaper.pdf. Caplan, Bryan. 2008. “The Totalitarian Threat.” In Global Catastrophic Risks, edited by Nick Bostrom and Milan Ćirković, 504–519. Oxford University Press, July 17. Caplan, Bryan, and Stephen Miller. 2010.

Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World
by Clive Thompson
Published 26 Mar 2019

Nonetheless, the libertarian protestations of a certain set of coders continues apace. In recent years, blockchain technology has been the latest site of tech’s anti-government fervor. That ranges from Bitcoin—a currency specifically designed to create money that couldn’t be controlled by dough-printing central banks—to Ethereum, a way of creating “smart contracts” that, its adherents hope, would allow commerce so frictionless and decentralized that even lawyers wouldn’t be necessary: The instant someone performed the service you’d contracted them to do for you, the digital cash would arrive in their digital wallet. One survey of people in the cryptocurrency community found that fully 27 percent called themselves libertarian, more than double the rate Pew Research Center found in the general population.

Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice From the Best in the World
by Timothy Ferriss
Published 14 Jun 2017

Nick Szabo TW: @NickSzabo4 unenumerated.blogspot.com NICK SZABO is a polymath. The breadth and depth of his interests and knowledge are truly astounding. He’s a computer scientist, legal scholar, and cryptographer best known for his pioneering research in digital contracts and cryptocurrency. The phrase and concept of “smart contracts” were developed by Nick with the goal of bringing what he calls the “highly evolved” practices of contract law and practice to the design of electronic commerce protocols between strangers on the Internet. Nick also designed Bit Gold, which many consider the precursor to Bitcoin. * * * What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why?