Solving the Contract Trilemma
Tags: Blockchain, Spannerprotocol, Smart Contracts, Crypto

Collaboration is as old as human kind. Its complexity ranges from two college students pooling funds together for a car, to the two hundred merchants collaborating as shareholders in the famous East India Company. Collaboration under the structure of a corporation gave us the modern world. As Nicholas Murray Butler, the president of Columbia University and Nobel Peace Prize winner said in 1911:

Limited Liability Corporation(LLC) was “the greatest single discovery of modern times”, surpassing steam and electricity, as without which, they would both “be reduced to comparative impotence”.

LLC was a creative legal leap forward. It is formed through a series of contracts and is a prime example of how contracts embody collaboration.

A contract is defined as an enforceable agreement of collaboration between two or more parties. Contracts vary in both formality and complexity — from verbal and written contracts enforced by law, to blockchain smart contracts enforced by code.

Verbal agreements can create legally binding contracts, only if the right contractual elements are present. This often fails as providing proof becomes difficult in the case of he-said she-said.

agreements can create legally binding contracts, only if the right contractual elements are present. This often fails as providing proof becomes difficult in the case of he-said she-said. Written Contracts , are in itself, proof of an agreement of collaboration between its signatories. However, enforcement of them are often open to interpretation and does not provide reproducible results and can be extremely costly.

, are in itself, proof of an agreement of collaboration between its signatories. However, enforcement of them are often open to interpretation and does not provide reproducible results and can be extremely costly. Smart Contracts provide collaborators binding agreements, and are guaranteed to self-enforce as coded. However, most platforms have limited functionality. On Ethereum, complexity has an imposed limit and even when one stays within the bounds, the contract then becomes prohibitively expensive to run.

The current pricing mechanism for Smart Contracts are fundamentally flawed, hindering the possibility of complex collaborations. In addition, the ability of contract drafting no longer belongs to professionals and parties involved, rather it is placed in the hands of software developers. Smart Contracts are a new leap forward, but fails to provide an adequate solution to handle complexity and remains inaccessible to most users.

The above can be summarized by the “Contract Trilemma”

Spanner protocol employs an integrated design of technology and economical model that will change the landscape of Smart Contracts. It empowers any user to draft Complex, Self-Enforceable and Economical Smart Contracts using plug-and-play components and templates. These components along with Spanner economics will incentivize and enable people to assemble around common objectives. Communities will form organically and collaborate to tackle some of the most complex settlement issues.

We are excited to finally share some of our ideas with you. There will be much more to come so stay tuned, follow and share this article!

by Sergei Smirnov