Smart Contracts: Vending Machines for the Digital Age
When Nick Szabo introduced Smart Contracts, it was with a vision to make virtual transactions work like vending machines — accessible to everyone, no middlemen required, automatically executed, securely stored, and powered by simple Boolean logic (If… Then…).
Insert payment. If you followed the instructions, you get your result.
But instead of chips or soda, this machine can:
- Transfer ownership of a house
- Pay out insurance if your flight's delayed
- Distribute royalties to eight artists at once
- Launch an entire DAO while you're still trying to decide between Cheetos and pretzels
This machine doesn't care who you are, what your credit score is, or whether you're wearing pants.
▶️ Did you do the thing? ✅ Cool. 👉 Here's the other thing.
▶️ Didn't do the thing? ❌ Cool. 👉 You get nothing.
Vending machines for the decentralized world — no customer service, no approvals, just code doing what code does best: executing the rules exactly as written.
But what about when things go wrong?
And if you're thinking, "Yeah, but what happens when the chips get stuck or you get the wrong item?" — yes, even the most secure systems can have vulnerabilities.
But smart contracts won't eat your money and stare at you blankly while you shake them in frustration.
With Web3, if something does go wrong? There's already an entire community of devs knee-deep in a postmortem, a full forensic audit in progress, and 14 governance proposals in the works.
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