Smart contracts vs. Decentralization
- One and the same? -
Smart contracts vs. Decentralization
- One and the same? -
In my last post I talked about a specific definition of smart contracts, namely the concept developed by Szabo in the mid to late 90s. In his understanding, smart contracts are formalized digital promises implemented upon capable network protocols.
Although Szabo has demonstrated deep knowledge of computer science, his conceptual design of smart contracts was heavily influenced by his background in law. This fact becomes most obvious, when he explains his reasoning behind the naming of smart contracts:
I call these new contracts “smart”, because they are far more functional than their inanimate paper-based ancestors.
Only lightly did I touch upon the question of how the phenomenon of smart contracts relates to the topic of decentralization. Modestly, I related the emergence of distributed consensus networks to the necessity of commonly-available protocols for smart contracts to be viable.
Recent events have called into question our current understanding of smart
Moreover, I skipped the different evolutionary steps in smart contract genealogy, which is something I try to remedy in this post. I will try to establish a clear relationship between decentralization, distributed consensus networks and smart contracts.
**Szabo’s Smart Contracts
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**Decentralization
**The term “decentralization” as understood here stands for the process of technology-driven disintermediation of economic and societal processes. More importantly though
Exported from Medium on January 3, 2025.