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Limitations of a Smart Contract?
TrySpace
Member Posts: 3 ✭
I read in the docs that an ethereum contract is not equivalent to `X agrees on Y on Z condition` although it should be possible to achieve this, a contract is rather and agent of data. My question is how would you implement a more complex contract than `transfer X to Y`?
Would it be possible to translate a simplified version of a human/legal contract to just 1 solidity contract, or would it be better to splice them up in multiple parts, and if so, how would these contracts communicate with each other? As I understand contracts can only access their own data because of encapsulation.
For example if I have a contract which is invalidated after a particular date, I would have to monitor this externally, since there's no automation of such kind within a blockchain as I understand it.
Would it be possible to translate a simplified version of a human/legal contract to just 1 solidity contract, or would it be better to splice them up in multiple parts, and if so, how would these contracts communicate with each other? As I understand contracts can only access their own data because of encapsulation.
For example if I have a contract which is invalidated after a particular date, I would have to monitor this externally, since there's no automation of such kind within a blockchain as I understand it.
Best Answer
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astro
Member Posts: 16 ✭
Contracts will ultimately be able to make calls to each other, so your contract could rely on other contracts, and so on. An Ethereum contract is code, so if you want to enforce a contract, you have to be able to program those conditions into the contract.
I think the best answer to your question is that if the data you are looking for is stored on the blockchain, it's possible to write a contract to interact with that data. Now, how it gets on the blockchain might be the harder question.
Taking your example of a contract that needs to be invalidated on a particular date, we can try to solve this using blockchain data. Each block takes approx 12 seconds, and the current block is 1638239, so I can do some math and determine the block # (roughly) that my code should check against.
In some cases, however, you may not be able to get the info from the blockchain (sports scores for instance), and in those cases you may have to write classic applications (or just have trusted people) which insert data into the blockchain/contract. Like any other application or infrastructure, you need to understand your use case and plan accordingly. Is it okay if I rely on a third-party service to make calls updating some fields in my contract? Can the data be publicly view-able or do I need to somehow obfuscate it when I put it on the chain? It's always a design game.