The Evolution of Smart Contracts and Cryptoeconomic Security

"The Evolution of Smart Contracts and Cryptoeconomic Security" discusses how smart contracts are improving, their growing use of oracles and new data sources, as well as the cryptoeconomic security that externally connected smart contracts will come to rely on.Table of ContentsSection 1: What is a Contract and What is its purpose?0:00 - Introduction3:35 - Commercial agreements upon social contracts5:27 - A brief history of Commercial Contracts7:21 - Increasing economic production through the ability to create contracts9:03 - Technology enforced contracts leading to smart contracts of the present 11:28 - What digital agreements seek to achieve in a future of automation12:50 - Asymmetric control of centralized contracts on the web/Internet 14:33 - Smart contracts and blockchains automating digital agreements and social contracts16:22 - A parallel legal system for emerging market growth in Insurance, risk and economic destiny17:45 - Smart contracts changing the way of life for billions of people and generations to comeSection 2: The Oracle problem for smart contracts19:10 - Decentralized Oracles and Smart Contracts and tamper-proof digital agreements21:00 - Delivering external real-world events to smart contracts28:00 - Chainlink’s approach to reliable and secure decentralized oracles for Web332:55 - Why decentralized oracles decrease the risk for users and smart contract developers34:40 - Binding service agreements for securing data quality in decentralized oracle networks Section 3: On-chain Service Agreements and Cryptoeconomic incentives of staking37:45 - Providing guarantees of reliable high-quality data to smart contracts39:55 - Cryptoeconomic security from staking40:53 - Implicit staking in decentralized blockchain network protocols42:27 - Explicit staking of generating blocks in decentralized blockchain network protocols 44:44 - Staking in Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network for the end-to-end security of a contract47:30 - User fees in Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network for reliable high-quality data delivery48:50 - Governance structures in a decentralized oracle network53:05 - Smart Contracts as the dominant form of digital agreement 54:04 - Accelerating the creation of various smart contracts through the Chainlink Grants ProgramBlockchain-based smart contracts are the next generation of digital agreements, providing deterministic guarantees on the execution of the contract according to its terms. However, smart contracts require a secure and reliable connection to external data existing outside the blockchain, commonly known as the “oracle problem”.Chainlink offers multiple features to help developers overcome the oracle problem, including decentralization, provably secure nodes, high-quality data, crypto-economic security, defense-in-depth strategies, connection to numerous blockchain environments, and a large open-source development community. These features have allowed products from decentralized finance (DeFi) to enterprise-level solutions to seamlessly integrate external data into their smart contracts.One of the most important elements of any blockchain oracle network is the use of high-quality data. To give users stronger guarantees about the quality of data, Chainlink applies binding Service Agreements between the requesting smart contract application and the node operator(s), which are cryptographically signed by both parties. The Service Agreement outlines the exact terms of service that the node operators need to provide and the penalties for not upholding the terms defined. Sergey expands on the crypto-economic security backing service agreements by discussing implicit and explicit staking. Implicit staking refers to the idea that participants in the network will act in its best interests to uphold the value of the underlying asset, while explicit staking refers to node operators depositing a pre-determined stake to back their performance of the agreement, which can be slashed for not upholding the terms.The Chainlink Grant Program is also introduced as a way to accelerate the development and adoption of smart contracts via a more robust set of data and open-source tools available on the Chainlink Network. This will accelerate the development cycle, increase access to quality data, further expand API services, and provide additional developer tools to make it easier to build and monitor Chainlink oracle networks. Website: https://chain.link/Twitter: https://twitter.com/chainlinkNewsletter: https://chn.lk/newsletterSmartContract Twitter (shares Chainlink news) https://twitter.com/Smart_ContractPrice Feeds: https://feeds.chain.link/If you’re a developer, visit the developer documentation https://docs.chain.link or join the technical discussion on Discord https://discordapp.com/invite/aSK4zew#Chainlink