IOTA Smart Contracts

Brought to my attention, the use of smart contracts as is foreseen in the IOTA system we have been examining for use.  Most of the detail is at the link.

Introduction to IOTA Smart Contracts
I want to thank my colleagues in the IOTA Foundation who provided input and feedback for this article. In particular, Eric Hop, who headed the Qubic project and now joins IOTA Smart Contracts, and Jake Cahill, who is responsible for most of the wording.

IOTA Smart Contracts is an ongoing effort by the IOTA Foundation. The goal of this article is to inform the community about what we are doing and where we are heading with IOTA Smart Contracts. It also presents an opportunity for the community to begin contributing to the project with questions and feedback.

Background
Recently, Eric Hop presented the Qubic project in his article The State of Qubic, and explained our decision to focus exclusively on smart contracts for the time being. Naturally, these developments raised many questions from the community about how IOTA Smart Contracts relate to Qubic’s vision.

This article will answer those questions, providing some context and a technical introduction to IOTA Smart Contracts. Although many aspects of IOTA Smart Contracts were derived from the Qubic project, in many ways it is a standalone project in its own right. We believe the direction we are taking has lots of potential and we are now taking the steps necessary to prove this potential in practice.

What is a Contract?
Before we define a smart contract, it is important to first understand what a legal contract is.

Legal contracts are non-deterministic agreements that are subject to complex legal systems. The laws surrounding contracts vary depending on a number of factors, such as the country in which all parties entered into the contract. The most important word here is “non-deterministic”. This means that contracts are often ambiguous, and their subjective interpretation can lead to disputes. .... "