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From 2014-2016, financial folks talked about Bitcoin as if it was an oddity. Now, it's mainstream.
The same thing is happening to smart contracts and oracles. Today many folks look at them with crooked looks. Over the next decade, they will increasingly become the norm. Why?
The same thing is happening to smart contracts and oracles. Today many folks look at them with crooked looks. Over the next decade, they will increasingly become the norm. Why?
- Smart contracts can be designed to automate the agreement and performance aspects of a contract.
- They rely on digital assets, enabling near real-time payment and/or settlement.
- They enable the low-cost distribution of assets to multiple parties simultaneously.
- They rely on digital assets, enabling near real-time payment and/or settlement.
- They enable the low-cost distribution of assets to multiple parties simultaneously.
- They enable folks to represent/ transfers digitally assets in units that are smaller than today.
- They make it easier to divide legal rights that were once bundled (e.g., governance and profit rights)
- They make it easier to divide legal rights that were once bundled (e.g., governance and profit rights)
- They rely on oracles like #chainlink and @UMAprotocol enabling rapid settlements of positions.
- They can hold pooled capital, redefining what it means for market makers, funds, clearinghouses, and exchanges.
- They can be used to streamline voting (direct and proxy).
- They can hold pooled capital, redefining what it means for market makers, funds, clearinghouses, and exchanges.
- They can be used to streamline voting (direct and proxy).
- They can be managed by a community, potentially lessening the need for trade associations and rules maintained by exchanges.
- They are composable, meaning one contract can seamlessly work with another contract at a software level, enabling emergent applications.
- They are composable, meaning one contract can seamlessly work with another contract at a software level, enabling emergent applications.
Smart contracts may not work for all contracts and likely will be mostly used in crypto native marketplaces and applications.
But, they are poised to play a big role in the commercial world, as blockchain entrepreneurs continue in their quest to build a global, permissionless financial system.
If you are in finance or a legal professional, you should begin to understand smart contracts and related concepts like oracles and Ricardian contracts.
Even if you have skepticism about whether blockchain technology will scale or succeed, the mechanics being explored today by blockchain technologists will likely bleed into other domains.
Technologists told you about Bitcoin and possibly stablecoins and you may have shrugged it off, but now there are robust policy conversations about digitizing fiat currencies in the US, EU, and China.
Once we have widely distributed, stable digital assets, smart contracts become increasingly useful. Paper contracts have a half live and it's decaying rapidly.
Thousands of developers are exploring not just how to digital assets, but also contracts. These smart contract marines are aiming to push society forward, replacing inscrutible legal text with community supported and run smart contracts with dynamic oracles.
