Consumer Contract Externality and Bitcoin Escrow

As “smart contracts” become represented in a sphere approximately known as “development”, the illusive idea of “smartness” in respect of outcome and delivery overrides the integral strength of a contract indexing to one or more forms of money while maintaining a universally observable measure of value where inflation rates are comparable.

The Representation of Signatures

It would be a matter for philosophy only, that a smart contract could “code out” externality, since a smart contract (theoretically) doesn’t recognise third parties.

In reality — and for example, in mining — an undertaking will impact and carry consequence to those outside of the contractual activity: a bitcoin represents an externality in respect of the energy it requires and consumes, but that externality is believed lessor than the medium of exchange it provides for.

The indexation of consumption to a general price level has become median in contractual escalation, so that the consumption has to be broad enough to carry meaning even if the externality of the consumption is itself indexable: Satoshi Nakamoto remarked on the possibility to escrow bitcoin, where signatures are conscience of transactional intent, so contracts could adjust rather than escalate, from an escrow in trusted genesis, where the possibility for administration of the escrow would be a matter for government, in an abstraction hitherto remaining out of this world.