Hacker News Reader

Comment by anony23 | Hacker News Reader

Smart contracts are NOT contracts. They are software that run on the EVM. That's it.

You are downplaying the real impact of "software that run on the EVM."

Absent the existence of a functioning and accessible legal system to mediate the resolution of disputes, smart contracts can serve the societal purpose otherwise served by traditional paper contracts.

Yes, smart contracts are not paper contracts disputes over which are judiciable by a court, but in many situations smart contracts can replace paper contracts, reducing or eliminating the need for courts to intervene in the first place.

I'm an Eth fanboy and I find this take hyperbolic. It's programmable money and often a security nightmare. In order for smart contracts to replace paper contracts in the way you describe, every participant needs to be a software engineer that can audit the code.

Not every smart contract needs to be unique or original. A well-audited library of reusable smart contracts that is published and/or endorsed by a coalition of reputable entities can provide most of the functionality that most businesses and people would typically need. Think of the standard form agreements that are offered by companies like LegalZoom, etc.

Yes, Ethereum's security model is a problem. There's no reason to believe, however, that it won't be improved upon.

A lot of semantic arguments could have been avoided if they'd just called them "scripts" instead.

Smart contracts are still contracts, just a different kind than the typical legal contracts. "Contract" has been used to describe API interfaces. Words can have more than one meaning. "Contract" is also a verb, with multiple meanings.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_by_contract

Hah, that's a good point.

I think we both know that they were called "smart contracts" to draft off the legal meaning of the term.

It's money, they should not have been called contracts. Communication is a thing.

Guess smart scripts just doesn’t roll off the tongue the same way.

legally binding scripts

You don't get to a multi billion scam, sorry, valuation, by calling them "scripts". The naming was very deliberate

Bitcoin Script is literally the name of bitcoin's programming language.

I interpret "contract" like a contract between two software components. e.g. This is the schema of what our endpoint returns. You can work off of that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com