Smart-Contracts

A version of this article first appeared in Coindesk on June 4, 2016. Read Part 1 of this series here. The term “smart contract” has no clear and settled definition. The idea has long been hyped to the public as a central component of next-generation blockchain platforms, and as a key capability for any practical enterprise application. They are defined variously as “autonomous machines”, “contracts between parties stored on a blockchain” or “any computation that takes place on a blockchain”. Many debates about the nature of smart contracts are really just contests between competing terminology. ...