Smart Contracts ..where are we now in their advancement ?

[ChiBitCTy]

I'm very curious where we currently stand in terms of smart contract cryptographic advancement.  I am no Mr Robot so my base level of understanding is not high when it comes to cryptography and smart contracts in general.  Of course I know basics such as ETH is based upon a S.C. platform per say, and I've even heard that bitcoin has smart contract tech built in to it's bchain, and I understand some of the main uses/potential uses for S.C.'s but how far have we really gotten in their advancement?

For example, I love this topic posted by Satoshi because I see the potential as MASSIVE here ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=750.msg8140#msg8140 ).  First off, would anyone debate that this is not in regards to S.C's? I asked Nick Szabo if this post was and he stated while vague, he believes that is what Satoshi is referring to (in contrast to Craig Wright who told me he built in S.C.'s from day one which is in direct opposition of Satoshi's words himself lol ).

So have we gotten to the point of Satoshis vision where cryptocurrency and their blockchains can actually change the escrow game as we know it? If not, are we very far away?  I just think smart contracts can do so much good for the world in so many ways and am very excited to see their future in our world.  Thanks for reading /any input, up front.

[gmaxwell]

Unfortunately... People like centralized systems,-- they have lots of nice usability properties, people are willing to ignore their flaws/risks, they are easy to develop, and *critically* they are easy to monetize.

By contrast, smart contracts are essentially cryptographic protocols themselves-- inheriting the extreme difficulty and risk that normally comes with making a novel cryptographic protocol. They also inherit the development and usability challenges of distributed systems, and they're difficult or impossible to monetize-- which reduces the incentive to engage in the extraordinary amount of work needed to create them.

As a result even most things that hype "smart contracts" are pure pretext and misdirection. Mostly just borderline or outright scam tokens traded on promises which will never be met (if they're even possible to meet).  Or you get insanity like Ethereum's operators going and editing the blockchain state to take funds they personally lost due to a bug in some goofy contract they were participants in and then everyone involved trying to pretend that this wasn't an example of centralization that totally mooted any purpose for a smart contract in the first place ...

But there are many things possible, much more than even the simple example imagined by Satoshi, and the prospects seem tantalizing... but because of the lack of incentive and the risk of loss (other than for the operators of centralized systems where the funds can just be clawed back) it's a bit slow going.

Thought Bitcoin's history there have been a number of other just-for-fun smart contracting examples, e.g. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=293382.0 but a much smaller number of actual production uses.

There are some interesting smart contract things going on-- for example lightning protocol in Bitcoin is an example of using smart contracts for an actually useful purpose which isn't really just a cover for centralization or a ponzi scheme.

And most people don't even realize that it's Bitcoin smart contracts that power lightning-- maybe we should expect that when a smart contract system works people won't realize it's a smart contract at all.

Another important advance for smart contracts is, in my opinion, the taproot proposal in Bitcoin:   With taproot the common case of cooperating participants in a smart contract becomes indistinguishable from an ordinary boring payment. The full cost of public contract execution is then only needed if the contract participants try to cheat.  This makes smart contract usage much more cost efficient, censorship resistant, and private.  They doesn't make them less difficult to develop but it means they don't need to necessarily have a high operating cost.

There is ongoing research going into new tools for building smart contract languages which provide for a firm theoretical grounding to them, which should make it possible for stronger analysis of smart contracts which will ultimately make it easier to author them and be confident that they'll behave like you expect.

[ChiBitCTy]

I think I say "snipped" here  

I can't thank you enough for breaking that all down for me, and in words I can understand!  A lot of what I was curious about has become much more clear now.  I look forward to reading up on the projects you mentioned.  LN is one thing I'm actually kind of familiar with. A Mr Robot such as yourself taught me a lot about the network and I'm proud to say I even transacted on it a few times, my greatest tech achievement since running punter/prog programs as a teen script kittie troll on AOL  

One thing that really sticks out is the amount of work it takes to make cryptographic projects such as these come to fruition.  I always thought a Jeremy Hammond or Nick Szabo type could whip stuff up w/ease but obviously not at all the case. Which should be obvious as Satoshi had a lot of help himself. Thanks again man, MUCH appreciated, especially coming from someone as distinguished as yourself.  

[aa7356]

Unfortunately... People like centralized systems,-- they have lots of nice usability properties, people are willing to ignore their flaws/risks, they are easy to develop, and *critically* they are easy to monetize.

By contrast, smart contracts are essentially cryptographic protocols themselves-- inheriting the extreme difficulty and risk that normally comes with making a novel cryptographic protocol. They also inherit the development and usability challenges of distributed systems, and they're difficult or impossible to monetize-- which reduces the incentive to engage in the extraordinary amount of work needed to create them.

As a result even most things that hype "smart contracts" are pure pretext and misdirection. Mostly just borderline or outright scam tokens traded on promises which will never be met (if they're even possible to meet).  Or you get insanity like Ethereum's operators going and editing the blockchain state to take funds they personally lost due to a bug in some goofy contract they were participants in and then everyone involved trying to pretend that this wasn't an example of centralization that totally mooted any purpose for a smart contract in the first place ...

But there are many things possible, much more than even the simple example imagined by Satoshi, and the prospects seem tantalizing... but because of the lack of incentive and the risk of loss (other than for the operators of centralized systems where the funds can just be clawed back) it's a bit slow going.

Thought Bitcoin's history there have been a number of other just-for-fun smart contracting examples, e.g. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=293382.0 but a much smaller number of actual production uses.

There are some interesting smart contract things going on-- for example lightning protocol in Bitcoin is an example of using smart contracts for an actually useful purpose which isn't really just a cover for centralization or a ponzi scheme.

And most people don't even realize that it's Bitcoin smart contracts that power lightning-- maybe we should expect that when a smart contract system works people won't realize it's a smart contract at all.

Another important advance for smart contracts is, in my opinion, the taproot proposal in Bitcoin:   With taproot the common case of cooperating participants in a smart contract becomes indistinguishable from an ordinary boring payment. The full cost of public contract execution is then only needed if the contract participants try to cheat.  This makes smart contract usage much more cost efficient, censorship resistant, and private.  They doesn't make them less difficult to develop but it means they don't need to necessarily have a high operating cost.

There is ongoing research going into new tools for building smart contract languages which provide for a firm theoretical grounding to them, which should make it possible for stronger analysis of smart contracts which will ultimately make it easier to author them and be confident that they'll behave like you expect.

Taproot, and Schnorr, and SIGHASH_NOINPUT, oh my!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSUVRj8iznU

That's really cool,
Thanks.

[Carlton Banks]

By contrast, smart contracts are essentially cryptographic protocols themselves-- inheriting the extreme difficulty and risk that normally comes with making a novel cryptographic protocol. They also inherit the development and usability challenges of distributed systems, and they're difficult or impossible to monetize-- which reduces the incentive to engage in the extraordinary amount of work needed to create them.

I think this depends though on whether talking about direct or indirect monetization. Obviously an integrated smart contract that is self executing/deterministic cannot be monetized by some service provider, as the whole point of such constructions is to do away with the need for relying on 3rd parties to adjudicate the outcome of contracts between 1st/2nd parties. But it does increase the value of the actual Bitcoin network when a type of smart contract can be made conventional and standardized.

Still, directly monetizable smart contracts (and because they depend on some non-deterministic external factor) are possible. Someone wrote about this on the bitcoin-dev mailing list not so long ago: good behavior bonds. The bitcoin network cannot decide if behavior of those who sign the contract is good or bad, only the operator of the bond service can do that. Seems odd that no-one has even tried this yet, I would have expected at least an inept attempt to put it into practice.

Lightning itself is an example of directly monetizable smart contracts also. It's just that there's almost certainly never going to be much (even any) profit in it; it seems to me that watch tower fees will always push the market towards self-run nodes, which in turn pushes the relay fee market to (or even below) the bottom line.

[PrimeNumber7]

For example, I love this topic posted by Satoshi because I see the potential as MASSIVE here ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=750.msg8140#msg8140 ).  First off, would anyone debate that this is not in regards to S.C's? I asked Nick Szabo if this post was and he stated while vague, he believes that is what Satoshi is referring to (in contrast to Craig Wright who told me he built in S.C.'s from day one which is in direct opposition of Satoshi's words himself lol ).

I will respond to one thing satoshi said in the post you cited:

Now, an economist would say that a fraudulent seller could start negotiating, such as "release the money and I'll give you half of it back", but at that point, there would be so little trust and so much spite that negotiation is unlikely. Why on earth would the fraudster keep his word and send you half if he's already breaking his word to steal it? I think for modest amounts, almost everyone would refuse on principle alone.

With SW, it would be possible to craft a signed 'child' transaction the is dependent on the transaction releasing the coin to the fraudster.

What satoshi described also does not allow for the two parties to mutually agree to split up the coin, for example if a seller is unable to deliver all of a set of goods due to unexpected circumstances, but SW should allow for this to be addressed as well.

My understanding of SW and LN is it is theoretically possible to have a trust-less cross-chain transaction if both blockchains have adopted SW, or something substantially similar (transactions that can be time locked from the time of confirmation, and the ability to sign dependent transactions without the signed 'parent' signed transaction). This would be most advantageous for people wanting to trade coin for a stable coin (bitcoin for USDT).

[ChiBitCTy]

@prime#7 - thanks for your response. Interesting points!

@carltonbanks - thanks for your response. When it comes to this stuff I’m like DJ Jazzy Jeff..a complete idiot but I try to understand i.e. -I followed some of what you said.    I guess when I think of how SCs can come to fruition I never thought of the monihtazation aspect. I guess with out that, not a lot of Mr Robots are likely to sit down and code for weeks on end for no profit. I guess in terms of Escrow you could have a coin/blockchain that simply provides the platform and takes like .00001% of the transaction amount for doing so ..while buyers and sellers can utilize these self transacting contracts to facilitate everything. 

I guess some of this is a pipe dream more then likely..at least rn. I recently listened to Nick Szabo on this cast ( https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-what-bitcoin-did-podcast/id1317356120?i=1000455670093 )..which brought me down a bit on my excitement of SCs. He said he doesn’t see much advancement overall and their future is bleak (paraphrasing here). Bit of a downer coming from the creator of these (Though Nick is negative about seemingly everything in this world).

[ABCbits]

Unfortunately... People like centralized systems,-- they have lots of nice usability properties, people are willing to ignore their flaws/risks, they are easy to develop, and *critically* they are easy to monetize.

unfortunately, I think you are clueless, you need to understand that most people still haven't discovered decentralized technology, some people only heard of bitcoin and second of all the decentralized technology needs improvement, faster, ect.

I disagree. Many people who've discovered Decentralized technology (Bitcoin, BitTorrent, IPFS, etc.) still prefer centralized technology.
It's been proven by :
1. how many people store their Bitcoin on custodial wallet or exchange (which isn't intended to store Bitcoin)
2. low volume of DEX

[ChiBitCTy]

Nov 19, wow time flies..I am hoping to get an update from you Mr Robots..are we still where we were back in Nov 19’, or has there been some major “game changing” updates/advancements in the SC space?

One big reason I’m curious of late is DeFi. Every DeFi project I’ve reviewed is utter, un-sustainable, nonsense. But..maybe I’m missing something? Maybe there’s legit DeFi projects out there that utilize S.C.’s in a “breakthrough” way?  I of course am not looking for DeFi project suggestions here..just curious from a technical standpoint.

It’s hard to get info you can trust about this topic so I really appreciate you guys here.

[Carlton Banks]

Maybe there’s legit DeFi projects out there that utilize S.C.’s in a “breakthrough” way?  I of course am not looking for DeFi project suggestions here..just curious from a technical standpoint.

in brief, "discrete log contracts" is the new shiny. well, it's actually old-ish as Bitcoin concepts go (Tadge Dryja described the initial idea more than 200,000 blocks ago! ), but I don't think anyone was working on an implementation until... 2019? I'm guessing. There's still work to do before it's usable, but there seems to be quite a bit of activity on the project.

[d5000]

An example of a simple "DeFi"-style contract with Bitcoin Script is aliashrafs protocol for American options, from last year, based itself on the well-known Atomic swap protocol by Tier Nolan. It builds on a flaw of the Atomic swap protocol: that there is optionality favouring one of both parties of the trade (one can abandon it, letting the other sit on transaction fees), but adds a premium payment which is enforced once both parties agree. It would work with any cryptocurrency pair where both chains support Segwit, hashlocks and CLTV-style timelocks.

Unfortunately until now it wasn't reviewed in depth (perhaps here it gets the deserved attention ), I've proposed the AtomicDex folks people to add it to their DEX but there was no response - that may be an indication that what gmaxwell wrote is correct, that there is not much interest to implement "really decentralized" DeFi contracts instead of semi-centralized contracts with monetization potential for the owners or developers.

@Carlton Banks, thanks for the mention of Discrete (discreet?) Log contracts, looks interesting, will investigate (found this for example)!

[ChiBitCTy]

Thank you guys! Very informative. I am also very interested to see what Gmax thinks, as both a Mr Robot and a very finance savvy dude..we are lucky to have him here.

Found this gem from fake Satoshi in my pics I thought I’d share for a laugh. (My statement doesn’t make a ton of sense not being able to see what I was replying to just FYI ).. is this even true?

[NotATether]

One big reason I’m curious of late is DeFi. Every DeFi project I’ve reviewed is utter, un-sustainable, nonsense. But..maybe I’m missing something? Maybe there’s legit DeFi projects out there that utilize S.C.’s in a “breakthrough” way?  I of course am not looking for DeFi project suggestions here..just curious from a technical standpoint.

The main problem with them is that they are supposed to be written by people who are qualified to write cryptography. But almost nobody who writes them is, and heck, I don't think I qualify by those standards, and the result you get is a contract but it has a bunch of holes in it that someone with a fairly good idea of cryptographic algorithms (not requiring the aforementioned qualified knowledge) can exploit to ruin the whole thing.

[ChiBitCTy]

Found this gem from fake Satoshi in my pics I thought I’d share for a laugh. (My statement doesn’t make a ton of sense not being able to see what I was replying to just FYI ).. is this even true?

No, because
1. Because he's fatetoshi
2. It's not mentioned on bitcoin whitepaper
3. Although Satoshi prepare many OPCODES, it's not intended for smart contract, but support all kinds of transaction Satoshi could think. See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611.
4. The one who propose P2SH is Gavin Andersen (https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0016.mediawiki)

So Satoshi “prepared” but did not “implement” (as also stated in his Escrow thread), which means my Twitter exchange with Craig 100% proves he’s not Satoshi right?  Lol, what a fool.

“I don't believe a second, compatible implementation of Bitcoin will ever be a good idea.  So much of the design depends on all nodes getting exactly identical results in lockstep that a second implementation would be a menace to the network”... is he saying that a second layer is not a good idea ?  Of course things change. I know Szabo supports it, he even yelled at me for not mentioning it as a needed upgrade in a Twitter discussion   

[vjudeu]

is he saying that a second layer is not a good idea ?

Not second layer, but second client. Today, there are many other clients than Bitcoin Core, but maintaining a client that is independent of Core is hard and that is the reason why Satoshi wanted to deal with only one client as long as possible.

[ChiBitCTy]

Just curious if any breakthroughs have come in the SC space, or are we still where we were at when I last posted on here?

Are Bchain oracles legitimately helping advance SC concepts/proposals..or are Oracles just nonsensical hype ruining certain important features kind of like how POS blockchains do vs POW?

What prompted me to ask for an update was all the talk around SCs being game changers in spaces such as finance and NFTs (gaming/music/gambling etc)..but it seems they’ve not really provided anything game changing in these spaces yet and it’s all pure hype.  

Is there any sort of blog or mailing list where updates in the SC space are talked about by those who know what they’re doing..Kind of like the cpunk mailing list, but for non-experts like myself? ( I feel my questions here may be venturing off topic a bit, but I don’t know of any other place period where I can discuss these things and know I’m getting legit information).

[garlonicon]

Just curious if any breakthroughs have come in the SC space, or are we still where we were at when I last posted on here?

Now we have Taproot and you can use it on mainnet.

What prompted me to ask for an update was all the talk around SCs being game changers in spaces such as finance and NFTs (gaming/music/gambling etc)..but it seems they’ve not really provided anything game changing in these spaces yet and it’s all pure hype.

We have a separate topic for NFT's on Bitcoin: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5377417

Is there any sort of blog or mailing list where updates in the SC space are talked about by those who know what they’re doing..

Yes, there are mailing lists for Bitcoin, for Lightning Network, for cryptography in general, etc.

Kind of like the cpunk mailing list, but for non-experts like myself?

That part is harder. I think searching the web and asking questions is the only way to learn things, because if you want to understand experts, you have to become an expert. Learning takes a lot of time, if you don't want to learn all needed technical details, then you can only ask questions, I can't see any other way.

I feel my questions here may be venturing off topic a bit, but I don’t know of any other place period where I can discuss these things and know I’m getting legit information

Well, you have some options:
1. You can take your time and become an expert.
2. You can search the web and find some general information, some topics are described in less technical ways on some pages, like this: https://learnmeabitcoin.com/
3. If the first two options failed, then you can ask on forums.
4. If there is some ready-to-read material, people will link to that in your topic.
5. If not, then such pages will be created, because it is easier to write something once and link to that than describe everything over and over again.
So, I think you will get some answers anyway.

[ABCbits]

Just curious if any breakthroughs have come in the SC space, or are we still where we were at when I last posted on here?

Aside from Taproot which now avaialble on mainnet, some people discuss RGB[1] and Taro[2] protocol.

Kind of like the cpunk mailing list, but for non-experts like myself?

That part is harder. I think searching the web and asking questions is the only way to learn things, because if you want to understand experts, you have to become an expert. Learning takes a lot of time, if you don't want to learn all needed technical details, then you can only ask questions, I can't see any other way.

Some technical from article Bitcoin Magazine[3] might be good source. They usually don't use meaningless buzzword or technical jargon when it's not needed.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5382633.0
[2] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5393585.0
[3] https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical][url]https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical[/url]

[ChiBitCTy]

Thank you guys for the info and posted links, I really appreciate it!

Kind of like the cpunk mailing list, but for non-experts like myself?

That part is harder. I think searching the web and asking questions is the only way to learn things, because if you want to understand experts, you have to become an expert. Learning takes a lot of time, if you don't want to learn all needed technical details, then you can only ask questions, I can't see any other way.

I feel my questions here may be venturing off topic a bit, but I don’t know of any other place period where I can discuss these things and know I’m getting legit information

Well, you have some options:
1. You can take your time and become an expert.
2. You can search the web and find some general information, some topics are described in less technical ways on some pages, like this: https://learnmeabitcoin.com/
3. If the first two options failed, then you can ask on forums.
4. If there is some ready-to-read material, people will link to that in your topic.
5. If not, then such pages will be created, because it is easier to write something once and link to that than describe everything over and over again.
So, I think you will get some answers anyway.

I think you're missing my point here.  For one, not everyone can become a technical expert. It's like with advanced mathematics, no matter how hard I try, I will never be good at it.  Also, I disagree that you have to be an expert to understand an expert.  Andreas Antonopoulos is a prime example of that.  The first book I ever read about bitcoin was Mastering Bitcoin.  I read the whole thing but understood only maybe a quarter of it.  However, Andreas also has a YouTube channel where he discusses all sorts of high level topics but is able to break it down/make it understandable for those like myself who don't understand the inner workings, i.e. cryptography.  So it's not that I don't try and take the time to learn, because I do..It's just that I don't know who I can really trust when it comes to pulling up random articles on google or videos on YouTube.  It's like as a financial advisor I know there's countless misinformation out there and clients are constantly coming to me with things like "I read this" or "I watched this"  which were people giving financial advice who sure as hell shouldn't be.  How are my clients supposed to know who's legit and who's not?  Same thing for me..I know I can trust Andreas, Szabo, Back, Gmaxwell, and just a few others.  Like with misinformed finance articles all over the place, it's the same for Bitcoin/crypto. I don't want to read nonsense and not know it.

[Tokenista]

We are at a Point where Tokens on the Major Blockchains, now need to gear towards the Smart Media Token (SMT) Sidechain, Mining Wallet Development so that Tokens can be integrated into all aspects of online activity. The HIVE and STEEM Front Ends offered by PAL Network along with their DEX, is what every Blockchain needs right now.

Plus, eBay or Etsy type applications, that also merge into DTube type dApps, creating a full Social Economy.

As an example, why is there no MEE6 Bot that Mints you a Token, gives everyone a Wallet, and Runs a Group and Token to then be traded on a DEX meant for these. On all Chat Platforms.