Ethereum Bug Sends Smart Contracts Back to the Drawing Board
Bugs are a normal part of software, but on ethereum, they may be uniquely hazardous. That may be the takeaway from an ethereum programming language bug found this week that affects a specific style of smart contract and, because of how ethereum works (it promises applications will run exactly as programmed), most of the contracts affected can't be taken down or changed. In short, owners of decentralized smart contracts (those that aren't able to be upgraded by one owner) can't do anything to fix the bug. Two days after the bug report was issued, developers rolled out a fix in Solidity....
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"The two things to know about smart contracts is that they’re dumb, and they’re not contracts." This statement from Harvard Berkman Center's Patrick Murck seems increasingly relevant in the wake of the collapse of The DAO. The ethereum-based fund was the largest smart contract issued to date, and its failure has led many to reconsider how ready the technology is for primetime. At their core, smart contracts facilitate decentralized applications by eliminating trust points. Because they automate existing processes, many believe smart contracts could someday lower costs across....
As the developer of a popular blockchain platform, I sometimes gets asked whether Ethereum-like smart contracts are on the MultiChain roadmap. The answer I always give is always: 'No, or at least not yet'. But in the hype-filled world of blockchains, smart contracts are all the rage, so why ever not? Well, the problem is, while we now know of three strong use cases for permissioned bitcoin-style blockchains (provenance, company recordkeeping and lightweight finance), we've yet to find the equivalent for Ethereum smart contracts. It's not that people don't understand what they want smart....
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