1. Against “Smart Contracts”

CleanApp’s position against “smart contract” is principled and clear. We’re against the terminology because it muddies the waters and invites unnecessary legal/regulatory scrutiny.

Usage of the term “smart contract” is only sowing (1) chaos, (2) incoherence, (3) unnecessary complexity, (4) regulatory blowback, (5) added costs, (6) confusion, and (7) reduced innovation.

We’ve made our argument clearly, we continue to refine it, and we’ve worked overtime to bring it to the attention of decision makers who can do something about it.

We’re glad to see that the argument is resonating:

We’ve also tried to engage directly with Nick Szabo, the person who built the conceptual lattice around “smart contracts,” and gave “smart contracts” that presumptuous name.

But Nick “muted” us, claiming our critiques were “word-salad” and “gibberish.”

We don’t think our critiques are “gibberish,” and Vitalik Buterin & Vlad Zamfir don’t seem to think our critiques are gibberish.

Which raises the question: Why’s Szabo Afraid of “Smart Contract” Critiques?

2. Who We Are

We’re a small nonprofit that fell into crypto legal theory a few years ago when we were asked by friends (crypto devs) to explain “smart contracts” to a group of senior lawyers.

In the time since, we’ve spent a lot of time analyzing “smart contract” theory, practice, code, legality, politics, economics, game theory, institutional frameworks, and so on.

We read a LOT of Szabo, Buterin, Hoskinson, Larimer, Wood, Sills, Zamfir, and many other thinkers, new & old (Fuller, Corbin, Farnsworth, Coase, Calabresi, Posner — on top of the standard political econ fare one reads when they’re trying to understand how the world is run).

We formed reading/study groups to discuss nuances and blind spots in these arguments. We pooled resources to prepare thoughtful collaboratively-sourced responses and published our analysis in different forms and forums.

In short, we’ve earned the right to say what follows.

So if you’re a partisan who reads this as an unsubstantiated hit piece on “poor Nick Szabo,” we ask that you familiarize yourself with our crypto-allied credentials.

Then we ask that you familiarize yourself with Nick Szabo’s own style of intellectual ruthlessness.