What’s in a Name? — The Disambiguation of Smart Contracts

“Contracts run along a spectrum. For me there are probably 4 or 5 different types of “contract”:

1. Executable computer code — This is not a contract, it is just some code that will follow instructions
2. Executable computer code with a legal rights and obligations — This is closer to being a contract and provides a legal interpretation of how the code is expected to act
3. A legal contract with full execution of code implementation— subtly different to the previous example as the legalese is not being used to describe the logic, but the logic is looking to reflect the legalese
4. A legal contract with partial code implementation — You take an existing contract, identify the parts that can be automated using code, and then implement just those parts. The majority of the contract is in legal prose and the underlying parameters are focused on instantsiation of the contract rather than execution of the contract on a given
5. A legal contract with negotiation — This has nothing to do with executable logic, other than the ability to edit and negotiate in a live environment in a shared environment, think Googledocs for Contracts, something like Clausematch is a good example of this.”

Great piece by Anthony Macey. Read full articla on Medium http://ow.ly/IDda302jscf