Up until this point in the chapter, you have learned about the security and privacy that the blockchain provides out of the box and the techniques that enable this to be achieved. In this chapter, I used the words "smart contract" several times. What exactly is a "smart contract," though, what can you use it for, and what technologies are available to create and run smart contracts?
The definition of a smart contract is still fuzzy (that is, it's not yet fully established) and the legal status of smart contracts is also still a little vague. On the other hand, the phrase "smart contracts" was first published way back in 1994 by computer scientist and cryptographer Nick Szabo. This was the same year that web ...
