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Hello world, Siraj here! Let’s talk about 4 ways to use Smart Contracts.
A smart contract is just a piece of code that is stored on a blockchain instead of a server
That means no one can alter or delete it since blockchains aren’t controlled by anyone.
It enables people to do business with strangers without the need to trust a third party.
The first way to use it is to bring voting online. The US government has never brought voting online because
of the security risks involved. If they stored everyone’s vote on a server, that server could easily be hacked.
and votes altered. If only there was some kind of system that could securely and pseudonymously store votes
online. Oh right, the blockchain. To do this, an engineer could create a smart contract and push it to the
blockchain. A smart contract would then get an address. Citizens could then just send a transaction to that
address with their encoded vote and SSN. The contract would then verify that the citizen had never voted
before and then store it. Because this code runs on the blockchain, a hacker would have to have more
computational power than the 500 fastest supercomputers on the planet combined to break
the system. Ain’t nobody got that much computing power!
Once a government implements this, voter turnout will skyrocket. Voting would finally become just another app
on our phone. No having to wait in line at some paper ballot booth a 30 minute drive away.
Millennials would actually vote. This would fundamentally improve the quality of the politicians we
elect. The second way is to increase spending transparency. Think about all the cases of government
corruption or evil corporate dealings. All of them, every single one, has to do with money.
Stealing money, spending money on personal interests, giving and taking money from shady businesses.
the list goes on. With smart contracts, we as citizens of a nation or shareholders in a company
can demand that all spending happen on the blockchain. Smart contracts can be instituted to route money as we
see fit. So for example, let’s say a politician promises to increase spending on healthcare for their state
if there is a smart contract that will route money sent to it every time to 20 hospitals and 10 insurance companies
the public can audit it. Since all transactions are public on the blockchain’s ledger and verified to be unaltered
by cryptography. The more companies and governments that institute this kind of transparency
The more those who don’t will be pressured to do so. It’ll slowly become the norm.
The third way is to increase autonomy. As our species has progressed we’ve automated more and more
We’ve offloaded more and more work to our machines. This trend will continue as our machines get better
Smart contracts bring us one step closer to full artificial intelligence. Take ride sharing for example. Uber
is a software app run by humans. Soon, Uber will implement self driving cars so it won’t need drivers.
But with smart contracts, Uber could become even more autonomous. Even more independent of humans.
A self driving car could live as an independent entity. Picking up passengers, paying for its own repairs, filling
its own gas, parking itself, coordinating with other cars. If these tasks were all smart contracts that the car
communicated with, it wouldn’t need humans at all. Instead of humans having to run the logistics and
plumbing of the Uber network, they could focus on more fun, creative pursuits.
the 4th way is to create smart property. Smart property is an object who’s ownership is verified by the blockchain
Traditionally we use humans to verify these things. Like, a stranger can’t rent out your apartment on airbnb
because airbnb has verified that it’s yours. But with smart contracts, you wouldn’t even need airbnb.
to rent out your place. You could create a digital token that would represent your apartment
and then a smart contract that said something like if you send money to this address, transfer the ownership token
to the sender for X amount of time. And because there’s no middleman to take a cut, you get more money
for renting out your place. This can be applied to everything from patents, to cars to fridges.
anything with internet communication capability. The internet of things!
if you’d like to learn more about smart contracts, please check out the links in the description below
and please subscribe for more technology videos. I’ll def keep em coming. As always, thanks for watching!