Nick Szabo  🔑

That said, if your dApp/persistent script doesn't control assets or, short of invoking traditional law, incentivize performance, it's not a smart contract and you should call it something else.

Worrying about whether a smart contract is "legally enforceable" reflects a profound misunderstanding. The main relation of smart Ks to traditional courts is that smart Ks control burden of lawsuit. If "possession is 90% of the law", then a good smart K may be "99% of the law".

Agreed, a quality smart contract is created with self enforcement. The whole point is the elimination of the 3rd party.

Probably need a better term but it's basically the elimination of enforcement, by nature of the contract.

You can’t eliminate enforcement; if you do, the thing ceases to be a contract. (K = an en-force-able agreement between two or more parties).

I might suggest “self-executing” rather than “self-enforcing”

I distinguish between verifying (and thus, in combination with control of assets, incentivizing) performance, and automating performance. A vending machine, for example, verifies the user's perf (did user input a sufficient sum of money?) and automates the vendors' perf.