Reality check — Smart contracts are still going to need smart lawyers
2018 looks set to see a significant increase in the number of smart contracts developed and deployed. But for anybody who thought self-executing contracts might be soon be putting lawyers out of work, Brave New Coin’s discussion with Yoran Gill, Roy Keidar and Noa Mayer from Israelilaw firm Yigal Arnon indicates the opposite is more likely to be true
Cryptocurrencies Outlook 2018
The âwordâ referred to by Led Zeppelin, can be, in our scenario, ICOs, Tokens, Cryptocurrencies, Altcoins, Blockchain, Smart Contracts, Bitcoin, Ethereum⦠and âheavenâ is the destination of investors, blockchain pioneers, ICO enthusiasts, utopists, and firm believers in the swarm intelligence and the meritocracy of the Crypto space. These are new words, new terms, buzz words, but words already so prevalent that people had trouble ignoring them in 2017. If you think 2017 was a frenetic year, please, brace for â18â! Before jumping into our recap of 2017 and our outlook for â18 and before entering into details about specific names and terms, it is part of our job to demystify and explain this strange and fascinating world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
When smart contracts go bad — perspectives on loss & liability
Usually when a written contract ‘goes wrong’, it is a question of interpretation and clarity of drafting. This is usually resolved by looking at the intention of the parties, and by bringing in witnesses and evidence to support a position. With smart contracts, however, the landscape is fundamentally changed as the code itself is said to comprise the contract.
Stateless & Stateful Smart Contracts: Lessons in flexibility, scale, and security from digital circuit design
Smart contracts are part of the blockchain zeitgeist. And with reason: they are unlocking many useful applications. I’m writing this post to clarify that there are really two types of smart contracts: stateful smart contracts are the most flexible; stateless smart contracts have better scale and security.
The Smart Contract Network Effect Fallacy
Ethereum is unquestionably the market leading smart contract platform. It’s the oldest and most mature. It likely has the best protocol devs and certainly has the best community. Developer interest is surging. Major companies are investing in the platform. It has a clear roadmap. It’s led by one of the brightest minds of our era.
Smart Contracts and Distributed Ledger â A Legal Perspective
This paper takes a detailed look at smart contracts, the scope for their potential application to derivatives and ISDA documentation, and the relationship with DLT2. It also highlights other potential uses of technology that could facilitate a more efficient legal documentation infrastructure.
Risks And Opportunities For Systems Using Blockchain And Smart Contracts
The report describes some of the technical risks and opportunities in the application of blockchain technologies within government and industry, and how to assess whether blockchain-based systems will meet critical requirements. The project explores this primarily through the description and analysis of high-level design alternatives for illustrative âuse casesâ. Three use cases have been selected after a number of initial workshops and preliminary research: remittance payments, open data registries, and agricultural supply chain. These provide reasonable coverage of various kinds of requirements and regulatory concerns, against which we can evaluate design alternatives, and in turn learn more general lessons about blockchain technologies. In addition to this design-based analysis, we also report on some empirical results from testing prototype implementations.
Smart Contracts â From Ethereum to Potential Banking Use Cases
In the run up to the Blockchain for Finance Conference in Singapore 2017, FinTech Network with contributions from Zerado, have produced a whitepaper that looks at smart contracts and how they could improve efficiencies within the banking sector.
Blockchain Applications: From bitcoin to trade finance
A run down into how blockchain works in a nutshell, blockchain applications, smart contracts, cryptocurrencies and Blockchain assets, presented by the Hong Kong Bitcoin and Ethereum digital asset exchange, Gatecoin.
Blockchain Technology disrupting the Global Casino Industry
The precise origin of gambling is unknown, but games of chance are historically evident in many societies. The first known European gambling house, was the Ridotto, established in Venice, Italy in 1638. In American history, early gambling establishments were known as saloons, where like minded people could gather for drinks and cards.
Upgrading ‘Smart Contracts’ to ‘Wise Contracts’
“Smart contracts” is a phrase which is often difficult to define. Let me help: a “smart contract” is a contract which enforces itself! Nick Szabo gave the example of a vending machine. You insert the money, and the machine lets you take back either [1] your money, or [2] some merchandise.
Distributed Ledgers,Smart Contracts,Business Standards and ISO 20022
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Smart Contracts (SC) promise to transform automation in the financial industry, and are generating huge interest amongst financial institutions and technology providers. Rapid progress is being made towards more robust implementations of the technology that might meet the needs of the financial industry for security, resilience and scalability. However, regardless of the technology, addressing automation problems in a multi-party network environment also requires business participants to define and agree the meaning and content of shared data, business processes, roles and responsibilities. This is the domain of business standards, and the focus of this paper is the application of business standards to distributed ledger technology. This paper addresses some integral questions about how DLT/SC automation can run smoothly in a multi-party network environment and highlights the importance of avoiding âreinventing the wheelâ when it comes to business definitions that facilitate interoperability. The paper recognises that full-scale standardisation of DLT/SC use cases is premature; however, SWIFT stands ready to work with the community to conduct further studies into the reuse of existing business standards in order to better facilitate the efficient workings of DLT/SC technologies for the financial industry as a whole.â
Hardware Oracles: bridging the Real World to the Blockchain
Blockchain applications live in their own digital realm, totally orthogonal to the “meat space” also known as the Real World™. Be it decentralized application or smart contracts, their reach is limited to the space they can control. Any use case projection in our reality eventually confronts the following hard fact: how can an app efficiently and securely interact with the physical world?
BNC launches finance data Oracles, to expand the usefulness of smart-contracts
Smart contracts are an exciting new frontier for technology, business, and law that have the potential to usher in a wave of innovation, and serve as a building block for the next chapter of the internet.
RSK Federation finds support from 24 leading bitcoin industry companies
RSK Labs is developing the first smart contracts platform secured by Bitcoin, codenamed RootStock. Several of the most influential Bitcoin companies have expressed their support by participating in an innovative hybrid security model, which incorporates a private Federation.
Allianz and Nephila successfully piloted blockchain technology for catastrophe swap
Insurance provider Allianz Risk Transfer AG (ART) and Nephila Capital Limited (Nephila) [announced](http://www.agcs.allianz.com/about-us/news/blockchain-technology-successfully-piloted-by-allianz-risk-transfer-and-nephila-for-catastrophe-swap-/%20) on Wednesday that they have “successfully piloted the use of blockchain smart contract technology for transacting a natural catastrophe swap.”
