Smart contracts are DOA, it's not an economic issue, it's a technical one; the rules of the smart contract can only be enforced on the blockchain, any concerns outside of that must necessarily fall back on the traditional legal system for enforcement thus eliminating any utility the smart contract intends to provide.<p>edit: I'm not saying there is no value in systems of arbitration outside the traditional legal system, I'm saying that a blockchain is super wasteful and expensive relative to a centralized system that can accomplish the same guarantees because they share the same legal underpinning, i.e. the courts. There is no legal difference between a smart contract and word document.
Eli5: How do smart contracts change anything when their enforcement has to be performed by legacy systems?<p>In my country, drafting contracts is hardly a problem. But if someone breaches your contract, good luck trying to get the law to act on it quickly enough
pretty strange career choice although if his intentions are to impact the way smart contracts shape up in the future it could be a good move. His intentions will certainly be tested by VC intentions to make money for the investors.
Im highly suspicious of any blockchain startups given the cryptocurrency environment we live in. If this guy was part of the discussion for one of the main cryptocurrencies about governance, I'd be more excited.
it would be interesting if contracts(legal ones) had version control.<p>Here's a base contract 1.0.0 and you can fork it and add/subtract sections, change wording etc.
There is <i>no</i> Nobel Prize in Economics. There's only the "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences" which was established in 1968 by a donation from Sweden's central bank.