Jonathan Keim, communications director of CryptoCurrencyWire, captured another trio of fascinating headlines that revealed how fast the crypto revolution is disrupting conventional ways of doing business on this latest episode of the Wild West Crypto Show.
Legal agreements, for example, are as old as Methuselah but now, by incorporating blockchain technology, they are being reincarnated as “smart contracts” — self-executing, self-enforcing agreements that don’t require costly, arduous ...
Jonathan Keim, communications director of CryptoCurrencyWire, captured another trio of fascinating headlines that revealed how fast the crypto revolution is disrupting conventional ways of doing business on this latest episode of the Wild West Crypto Show.
Legal agreements, for example, are as old as Methuselah but now, by incorporating blockchain technology, they are being reincarnated as “smart contracts” — self-executing, self-enforcing agreements that don’t require costly, arduous execution or resolution processes. Smart contracts are similar to regular contracts, except that the contract terms are coded in a programming language and that code is enclosed in a blockchain. Some well-known blockchain protocols, such as Bitcoin, support smart contracts. But the one mostly widely used is Ethereum, which has its own smart contract language called Solidity. Other languages used for smart contracts include C++, Java and JavaScript.
But, says Blockstack founder Dr. Muneeb Ali, such languages are insecure because they are “undecidable.” So in collaboration with Dr. Silvio Micali, founder of Algorand, Ali has launched an independent, open-source project to support Clarity, the “first-of-its-kind smart contract language” (http://ccw.fm/J7tXt). Clarity is a “decidable” language, which means that “developers can know, with mathematical certainty, what a program will and will not do ahead of time.” Now that the value of smart contracts has crossed a billion dollars, it’s time for “smart contract languages that are more safe, secure, and predictable in order to mature the industry beyond its current state,” say Ali and Micali.
In another news release — “Coca-Cola Amatil Vending Machines Accept Bitcoin via Centrapay” — one of the global beverage company’s largest bottlers is giving its customers the option to pay with cryptocurrency (http://ccw.fm/ZUk5s). Coca-Cola Amatil is partnering with digital asset integrator Centrapay to offer the service to its customers, who can use their Sylo Smart Wallet at any one of Coca-Cola’s 2,000-plus vending machines with a QR code payment sticker. Coca-Cola Amatil is the largest bottler and distributor in the Asia Pacific region, serving an estimated 270 million consumers and supporting some 140 brands.
Finally, the news that the National Science Foundation (NSF) is funding KRNC Blockchain to upgrade the U.S. dollar indicates the Feds have joined the crypto bandwagon (http://ccw.fm/Pqps1). The NSF is a federal government agency and the protocol it is funding — KRNC — could eliminate the need for private cryptocurrencies. KRNC allows existing electronic dollars to be retrofitted with new cryptographic features, including digital scarcity and smart contracts. “KRNC takes the positives of Bitcoin and adds them to money the public already owns,” said Clint Ehrlich, the project’s chief scientist. “It’s the virtual equivalent of taping gold to everyone’s dollar bills.”
For the latest episode of the Wild West Crypto Show, which includes CryptoCurrencyWire’s ongoing segment featuring the most recent news from around the world, visit http://ccw.fm/nMDe9
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