The author, self admittedly being a little late to cryptocurrencies, kind of buried the lead here: cryptocurrencies and cryptocontracts aren't twin technologies

The author, self admittedly being a little late to cryptocurrencies, kind of buried the lead here: cryptocurrencies and cryptocontracts aren't twin technologies; the ability to create and enforce contracts is built into the Bitcoin protocol. A lot of that functionality is currently dormant, (remember, the reference Bitcoin-Qt client is still hasn't reached version 1.0) it's likely to get enabled once other issues within Bitcoin are resolved. Also, there's been a lot of thought put into these concepts already: Mike Hearn's talk at the Bitcoin 2012 London conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mD4L7xDNCmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mD4L...) on Contracts, Smart property, etc. Bitcoin wiki entries on Contracts (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts), Smart property (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Smart_Property) and Agents (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Agents https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Agents) Nick Szabo's seminal paper Formalizing and Securing Relationships on Public Networks (http://szabo.best.vwh.net/formalize.html http://szabo.best.vwh.net/formalize.html) Ripple Labs (https://ripple.com/wiki/User:Justmoon/Contracts:_Overview https://ripple.com/wiki/User:Justmoon/Contracts:_Overview) is working on contracts too.