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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Carlos Molina-Jimenez, Dr Ellis SolaimanORCiD, Dr Ioannis SfyrakisORCiD
Abstract—In this paper we discuss how conventional business contracts can be converted into smart contracts—their electronic equivalents that can be used to systematically monitor and enforce contractual rights, obligations and prohibitions at run time. We explain that emerging blockchain technology is certainly a promising platform for implementing smart contracts but argue that there is a large class of applications, where blockchain is inadequate due to performance, scalability, and consistency requirements, and also due to language expressiveness and cost issues that are hard to solve. We explain that in some situations a centralised approach that does not rely on blockchain is a better alternative due to its simplicity, scalability, and performance. We suggest that in applications where decentralisation and transparency are essential, developers can advantageously combine the two approaches into hybrid solutions where some operations are enforced by enforcers deployed on–blockchains and the rest by enforcers deployed on trusted third parties.
Author(s): Molina-Jimenez C, Solaiman E, Sfyrakis I, Ng I, Crowcroft J
Publication type: Report
Publication status: Published
Series Title: School of Computing Technical Report Series
Year: 2018
Pages: 11
Print publication date: 01/04/2018
Acceptance date: 01/04/2018
Report Number: 1519
Institution: School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle University
Place Published: Newcastle upon Tyne
URL: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/media/wwwnclacuk/schoolofcomputingscience/files/trs/1519.pdf
