We are not far from decentralized contracts! Singapore completes the first B2B contract recorded on the public chain

The future of decentralized contracts is here! Singapore has completed the first B2B (Business to Business) contract recorded on the blockchain. Last week, IBM and BTMU’s collaboration on smart contracts was essentially private, and this blockchain agreement (MOU) is the first B2B contract that anyone can access and verify on the blockchain.

The agreement is a cooperation agreement between BLOCKCON (a blockchain conference organizer in Singapore) and ACCESS (Singapore Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Industry Association), using the digital signature service of smart contract startup Attores. The cooperation between the two parties includes various activities related to BLOCKCON 2017, marketing and PR.

The signature of the agreement contains the secure private keys of three parties and is recorded on the blockchain as cryptographic proof of the transaction event.

David Moskowitz from Attores said that the unique advantage of recording the agreement on the blockchain is that the signing process will be marked with a permanent timestamp by the blockchain, becoming a historical event.

The name of the signatory and the date of signing are presented in encrypted public key. This ensures the immutability of the contract. Any subsequent changes will cause it to be inconsistent with the hash value in the contract details, thus leaving traces of the modification. Currently, the contract details can be queried in the public ledger of the Ethereum block browser etherscan. Anyone can verify the contract details without directly contacting the signatory.

Not yet a smart contract

Although the blockchain protocol marks an advancement in the digitization of real-world contracts, it is not yet a smart contract. It is only semi-intelligent at the moment, because only the transaction event is recorded on the blockchain. The protocol does not contain any elements that can trigger code execution. Smart contracts should be in line with IFTTT (If This Then That) logic, and the next action will only be triggered if a certain condition is met.

Fran Strajnar, founder and CEO of bravenewcoin.com, believes that smart contracts are created for the next stage of execution, so if real-world data is not included in smart contracts, they will lose their value.尼克•萨博explained the origin of smart contracts in his article " Formalizing and Securing Relationships on Public Networks ". He compared the new generation of contracts to vending machines: only when there are enough coins, change and goods will come out, and this process is executed by a simple programming system inside the machine.

The parties involved also outlined an ambitious plan for the development of the blockchain protocol.

Once this form of contract becomes common, we will start to code the terms of the contract. In the near future, smart contracts will also be able to be securely managed by a third party and achieve the purpose of fund payment.

So can binding contracts in blockchain replace traditional legal contracts? Nick Szabo once said that smart contracts can make digital relationships more formal, and their practicality is far better than those lifeless paper contracts. From the establishment process of this blockchain agreement, it can be seen that the signing process of paper contracts can be completely replaced by blockchain. As for the legal effect of such contracts, Moskowitz and Strajnar both said that they are no different from traditional contracts. As for some non-quantitative terms, Moskowitz said that these terms will be determined by arbitration or human beings.