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From the article: "Now, if you paid the money, but the landlord refuses to release the keys, that's a violation of the contract. Similarly, you violate the cont

From the article: "Now, if you paid the money, but the landlord refuses to release the keys, that's a violation of the contract. Similarly, you violate the contract if you refuse to pay for the second week after using up the first week's rent. Per contract law, any party can sue in court if the other fails to satisfy their part of the bargain. Contracts allow people who may or may not trust themselves to do business since there's a trusted intermediary (the court) to enforce the agreements." (I admit being n00b here, and this piqued my curiosity.) Has there been any cases where the validity of smart contracts has been judged in courts? The article talks about removing the third party arbitration and the vending machine. But I don't see the mapping of the vending machine example, over to the landlord, rent payment - where one or the other party actually breaks the agreement. How is that solved with smart contracts? For example paying for something that turns out to be something else (an orgiginal drawing of a monkey, a container supposedly filled with high value, non-counterfeit Nike shoes.)

LightG 5y ago
Yes, that's weird. I havent' read the article, but in that situation, surely there has to be some independent verification? You pay the money Landlord refuses to give keys My gut says that the smart contract should then return the money automatically. But what if you are lying and did receive the keys. The only way to solve that is through independent / judicial? verification? In which case, what's the big deal about smart contracts? They're just digital manifestations of what's already taking place? Feel free to annhialate my karma. It's probable I just don't understand.
- KaiserPro 5y ago
  This is a fair assessment. Its a basic escrow situation. The only way it can be "automatically" verified is if there is a way to programmatically work out if the keys have been delivered to the right person. In ebay terms, signed delivery is enough, because the delivery company provides a signature. But for a landlord situation its much harder. You need to some how verify the receipt of keys went to the correct person stated in the "smart" contract. The traditional way is getting the estate agent to look at the ID of the person and get them to sign a form.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Most importantly you need to be resilient to people acting in bad faith which isn't always possible/easy. In that regard, even signed delivery isn't enough because the package can (and does - this is a common scam) contain a brick instead of the expensive goods you ordered.
- ahtihn 5y ago
  For anything physical you will always need the legal system as a backup. That said, you could imagine using smart locks that are connected to the blockchain and using smartcards for keys. Then at least key management is "solved". I put it in quotes because again, it's the physical world so there's still the issue that the smart lock could be broken and blockchain can't do anything about it. I don't think it makes sense for rentals because that field is heavily regulated and in a lot of jurisdictions you can't just lock out tenants when they're a day late on payment. It could make sense for something like standardizing gym access. For 24 hour gyms there's already systems to get access when no staff is present. You could imagine a blockchain based solution to manage that in a standardized way that could work across different gym chains. The advantage would be that pay-per-use is handled in an automatic way, gyms that want to join the network just need some hardware for access and they're good to go. As a user you wouldn't have to sign up for a different gym every time you move. The big issue is that most gyms don't want pay per use, they want to sell subscriptions knowing that most people end up not going after a few times. The above solution could also obviously be implemented by a centralized provider without using blockchain. Blockchain would be a marketing angle I guess and might help convince investors to give you money.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    > For anything physical you will always need the legal system as a backup. Or any trusted third party...
netcan 5y ago
Smart contacts are always going to run into the problem of interacting with the outside world. An apartment exists in the outside world, so to have a smart contract for this, blockchain (or any digital) stuff isn't going to be sufficient. There are two, broad ways for smart contracts to be useful. Either, there's some way of interacting with real world objects. Or, the contracts pertain to something completely digital that can be encompassed in a blockchain, like exchanging other digital assets. The former also requires outside realities (eg a court orders that a smart contract is void) to be reflected back to the blockchain. The latter, at least in theory, can be code only, and therefore plausibly decentralised.

LightG 5y ago

Yes, that's weird. I havent' read the article, but in that situation, surely there has to be some independent verification? You pay the money Landlord refuses to give keys My gut says that the smart contract should then return the money automatically. But what if you are lying and did receive the keys. The only way to solve that is through independent / judicial? verification? In which case, what's the big deal about smart contracts? They're just digital manifestations of what's already taking place? Feel free to annhialate my karma. It's probable I just don't understand.

KaiserPro 5y ago
This is a fair assessment. Its a basic escrow situation. The only way it can be "automatically" verified is if there is a way to programmatically work out if the keys have been delivered to the right person. In ebay terms, signed delivery is enough, because the delivery company provides a signature. But for a landlord situation its much harder. You need to some how verify the receipt of keys went to the correct person stated in the "smart" contract. The traditional way is getting the estate agent to look at the ID of the person and get them to sign a form.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Most importantly you need to be resilient to people acting in bad faith which isn't always possible/easy. In that regard, even signed delivery isn't enough because the package can (and does - this is a common scam) contain a brick instead of the expensive goods you ordered.
ahtihn 5y ago
For anything physical you will always need the legal system as a backup. That said, you could imagine using smart locks that are connected to the blockchain and using smartcards for keys. Then at least key management is "solved". I put it in quotes because again, it's the physical world so there's still the issue that the smart lock could be broken and blockchain can't do anything about it. I don't think it makes sense for rentals because that field is heavily regulated and in a lot of jurisdictions you can't just lock out tenants when they're a day late on payment. It could make sense for something like standardizing gym access. For 24 hour gyms there's already systems to get access when no staff is present. You could imagine a blockchain based solution to manage that in a standardized way that could work across different gym chains. The advantage would be that pay-per-use is handled in an automatic way, gyms that want to join the network just need some hardware for access and they're good to go. As a user you wouldn't have to sign up for a different gym every time you move. The big issue is that most gyms don't want pay per use, they want to sell subscriptions knowing that most people end up not going after a few times. The above solution could also obviously be implemented by a centralized provider without using blockchain. Blockchain would be a marketing angle I guess and might help convince investors to give you money.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  > For anything physical you will always need the legal system as a backup. Or any trusted third party...

netcan 5y ago

Smart contacts are always going to run into the problem of interacting with the outside world. An apartment exists in the outside world, so to have a smart contract for this, blockchain (or any digital) stuff isn't going to be sufficient. There are two, broad ways for smart contracts to be useful. Either, there's some way of interacting with real world objects. Or, the contracts pertain to something completely digital that can be encompassed in a blockchain, like exchanging other digital assets. The former also requires outside realities (eg a court orders that a smart contract is void) to be reflected back to the blockchain. The latter, at least in theory, can be code only, and therefore plausibly decentralised.