Smart Contracts: What are they, and how do they integrate into contract law and a business’s toolkit?
By: Skylar Shafer
The legal world is coming to terms with a digital revolution, with several key advancements in areas such as transformers for language models (ChatGPT) and blockchain (cybersecurity and cryptocurrency). One byproduct of these advancements has been the introduction of smart contracts, particularly correlated with the introduction of blockchain. Smart contracts are self-executing pieces of software that automatically and autonomously implement contractual terms on a peer-to-peer and immutable basis, when certain conditions are met.[1] To simplify this definition, smart contracts are fully digital contracts, secured through blockchain technology, that automatically enact clauses of a contract based on digital inputs. For example, a smart contract could verify the transit of goods from one place to another using digital inputs such as GPS or official online documents, and then automatically making payment and fulfilling a contract based on the completion of those conditions. [2]