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Comment by b112 | Hacker News Reader

A handshake can be a binding contract. Words spoken can bind you.

Thus, eth contracts can be enforced by civil courts too, if there is some chicanery going on...

Yes, but that would invalidate a very large chunk of the possible usecases for eth contracts. After all, if you end up needing the courts anyway you might as well use a normal contract, and the whole advantage of eth contracts - to me at least - appears to be the feature that the eth contract is the entirety of the arrangement. So it can be used between two parties in entirely different jurisdictions without that creating an imbalance.

And when the court orders that the parties do something that the eth contract cannot permit (and has been formally proven to prevent from ever being induced to do), how does the eth contract handle that?

If the meeting of the minds [1] is that the code is the contract, then the civil courts aren’t going to help.

For keeps, no takebacks, no do-overs…

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meeting_of_the_minds

IANAL, but I understood Meeting Of Minds to refer to the need for both parties to a contract to actually agree that a contract exists.

From the wiki page you reference for example:

> The reasoning is that a party should not be held to a contract that they were not even aware existed.

And later on, something directly relevant to this discussion perhaps:

> Mutual assent is vitiated by actions such as fraud, undue influence, duress, mutual mistake, or misrepresentation.

I think that this discussion is more closely related to the legal concept of a Mistake [0], which absolutely can be something that a court might address. Though even that doesn't seem like quite a perfect fit here.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistake_(contract_law)#Mutua...

IANAL either but my understanding was that the "meeting of the minds", is not just that a mutual understanding that contract exists but there is an agreement on basis of the contract.

In so far as it relates to Eth, my point was that the meeting of the minds only goes as far as "the code is the contract", and the use case is to eliminate the civil courts combing over intent and who knew what.

...as long as all the participants are traceable entities with known legal jurisdictions.

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