smart contract

Introduction

Smart contracts are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement directly written into code. They operate on blockchain technology, enabling automated, secure, and transparent transactions without the need for intermediaries. Despite their potential to revolutionize various industries, smart contracts face several challenges and limitations.

Key Insights

Security Concerns and Vulnerabilities
- Many smart contracts are vulnerable to malicious attacks, necessitating the development of automated repair and security analysis tools .
- There is no effective way to guarantee the security of smart contract code, and existing development tools are still basic .
Development Challenges
- Developers face significant challenges due to the limitations of programming languages and virtual machines used for smart contracts.
- Performance issues are difficult to manage in resource-constrained environments.
Legal and Practical Issues
- Smart contracts may struggle to adapt to existing legal frameworks, posing challenges for enforceability across different jurisdictions .
- The inflexibility of smart contracts can lead to inefficiencies, especially in volatile environments or when complete knowledge of future events is not possible.
Standardization and Verification
- There is a strong demand for formal specification and verification techniques to ensure the correctness of smart contracts, yet most lack formal specifications .
- Efforts are being made to standardize smart contracts to improve their management and integration into various use cases .
Potential and Applications
- Smart contracts have the potential to automate business processes, reduce costs, and improve efficiency in areas such as digital asset exchange, supply chains, and crowdfunding .
- They offer the promise of increased commercial efficiency and lower transaction costs by eliminating the need for intermediaries .

Conclusion

Smart contracts hold significant promise for automating and securing transactions across various industries. However, they face critical challenges related to security, development, legal enforceability, and flexibility. Addressing these issues through improved security measures, standardization, and formal verification techniques is essential for realizing the full potential of smart contracts.

Summary

Introduction

Key Insights

Conclusion

Sources and full results

An Overview on Smart Contracts: Challenges, Advances and Platforms

Smart contracts can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and reduce risks in business processes, but face challenges and require further technical advances.

Smart Contract Development: Challenges and Opportunities

Smart contract development faces challenges such as security, limited tools, programming languages, and performance issues, highlighting the need for improved resources and support.

Smart Contract Repair

Our SCRepair tool is an open-source, gas-aware, search-based approach for detecting and repairing bugs in smart contracts, ensuring secure transactions without relying on third parties.

Is a 'smart contract' really a smart idea? Insights from a legal perspective

Smart contracts offer potential benefits, but may face challenges in adapting to existing legal frameworks and ensuring their enforceability across jurisdictions.

Smart Contracts and the Cost of Inflexibility

Smart contracts may not eliminate inefficiencies in traditional contracts, as they lack the flexibility of human-language contracts and require full-defined terms, decentralization, and anonymity.

Smart Contract Security: A Software Lifecycle Perspective

Smart contract security requires a comprehensive study of issues and advances across four development phases, addressing common vulnerabilities and emerging challenges for blockchain engineers and researchers.

Smart contracts: terminology, technical limitations and real world complexity

Smart contracts are not yet a fully functional, commercially viable, and legally viable technology that replaces traditional legal and financial institutions.

A Survey of Smart Contract Formal Specification and Verification

This survey explores formal models and specifications of smart contracts to understand common trends and identify gaps for future work in verifying their correctness.

Smart Contracts on the Blockchain – A Bibliometric Analysis and Review

This paper identifies six main strands of research on smart contracts, providing a structured overview for future smart contract research and identifying potentials and challenges for future work.

Standardizing Smart Contracts

This study clarifies common misconceptions and provides guidelines for proper management of smart contracts, aiding future standards on smart contracts.

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