Field Note #14. On "Intro. to Smart Contracts"

Source: Stuart Levi & Alex Lipton [Skadden, Arps], “An Intro. to Smart Contracts & Their Potential & Inherent Limitations” (May 2018), avail. online.

Basic Smart Contract Negotiation Checklist:

• Favor ”ancillary” smart contract type over strictly code-based variant (e.g., use smart contracts to execute specific provisions of a broader text-based contract)
  Clear specification of variables in contract & trigger events
  Provision for what happens if there is oracle failure, error, ambiguity, business failure
• Define risk allocation in event of coding error
• Specify governing law and venue
• Specify order of precedence between text and code in event of a text vs. code internal contract conflict
• Consider insurance protection

Furthermore, a useful reminder concludes the article, conjuring the specter of Amara's Law (see Field Note #10) and C. Dixon's invocation of "skeuomorphism" ("overall we are still in the skeuomorphic era [because] [m]any web3 products are adaptations from older domains"):