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	~~{{G}}~~{{A\|tech\|}}Smart contracts cleave to [[Lawrence Lessig]]’s coinage in his terrific {{br\|Code: Version 2.0}}: “[[Code is Law]]” — you code legal rights into the operating parameters between the parties: “enforcement” of the contract is a matter of electronic [[affordance]]. If delivery parameters are X, Y, and Z, then that is all you can do, the machine polices that in practice by not letting through anything else. The thus your legal terms are matters of fact, rather than abstract [[metaphysical]] considerations agreed amongst l[[egal eagle]]s, committed to paper at inception and then put away, filed and forgotten, never to be looked at again, ''until it is too late''. For legal terms that float free, high above messy actual interactions with your counterparty, are a fat lot of good: wouldn’t it be great to code them directly into your [[API]], so to speak, so everything was deterministic, automatic and ''certain''?		{{A\|tech\|}}Smart contracts cleave to [[Lawrence Lessig]]’s coinage in his terrific {{br\|Code: Version 2.0}}: “[[Code is Law]]” — you code legal rights into the operating parameters between the parties: “enforcement” of the contract is a matter of electronic [[affordance]]. If delivery parameters are X, Y, and Z, then that is all you can do, the machine polices that in practice by not letting through anything else. The thus your legal terms are matters of fact, rather than abstract [[metaphysical]] considerations agreed amongst l[[egal eagle]]s, committed to paper at inception and then put away, filed and forgotten, never to be looked at again, ''until it is too late''. For legal terms that float free, high above messy actual interactions with your counterparty, are a fat lot of good: wouldn’t it be great to code them directly into your [[API]], so to speak, so everything was deterministic, automatic and ''certain''?

	But we’ve had [[smart contract\|smart contracts]] for a while. ''Whenever'' counterparties interact electronically, as they do when posting collateral under a [[CSA]], for example: the [[algorithm]]s, thresholds and validation sub-routines embedded in the technological infrastructure, rather than abstract ones set out on paper, govern what, when and how much collateral the parties exchange. Everything happens fast, ''deus ex machina'', and there is no articled clerk with a quill monitoring the data flows and cross-checking each transfer against the agreed eligibility criteria written in the [[CSA]]. All of that coded into the machine.		But we’ve had [[smart contract\|smart contracts]] for a while. ''Whenever'' counterparties interact electronically, as they do when posting collateral under a [[CSA]], for example: the [[algorithm]]s, thresholds and validation sub-routines embedded in the technological infrastructure, rather than abstract ones set out on paper, govern what, when and how much collateral the parties exchange. Everything happens fast, ''deus ex machina'', and there is no articled clerk with a quill monitoring the data flows and cross-checking each transfer against the agreed eligibility criteria written in the [[CSA]]. All of that coded into the machine.