Smart Contract: The Contract Automation Climax. Back-End and Front-End Legal Implications

Smart Contracts are a core part of blockchain technology use cases and usability. Even if they are essentially simply pieces of code, thanks to the raise of contract—and transaction—automation they became a concrete everyday tool in the exchange of value in the decentralized world. This chapter covers what smart contracts are and why they are relevant in the blockchain context: the approach starts with some legal observations and then evolves to a technical description. Smart contracts have brought legal-contract automation to its climax: starting with a division into three phases—Instrumental, Telematica, and Autómata—the present work leads the reader toward an awareness of this legally relevant evolution. This chapter closes with a description of a key component of smart contracts: front-end. The graphical interface for the user, in fact, is fundamental aspect of the usability—and legality—of the software itself. This contribution is intended to be useful both for a legal reader, who wants to dive into the legal aspects related to smart contracts, and for a general reader, who wants to take the first steps in this blockchain-based automation context.