So far, we have talked only about blockchain itself and how it solves authentication, interoperability, and traceability issues in different business areas. We've only addressed problems where decentralized and distributed databases combined with cryptographic algorithms and consensus protocols could advance value transfer and data sharing in a trustless environment to another level.
We showed that collaboration and coordination between competitors could be improved with a decentralized infrastructure empowered by a blockchain. We will now cover business issues that can be solved with smart contracts. As a reminder, smart contracts are computer programs that execute actions when certain conditions are met. They behave as a virtual person, performing actions under the respective code.
In Chapter 3, Ethereum and...