In this chapter, we've demonstrated the power of programmable money and how it can refine and reshape the financial industry. Starting by automating simple Bitcoin operations, we learned how to send and receive money. We closed the chapter with a real-world example by implementing a decentralized escrow contract on top of the blockchain.

An advantage of using cryptographic keys is that it virtually eliminates fraud, and reduces the costs and risks involved.

As demonstrated, using the blockchain to script various contracts is a very powerful tool for creating more efficient and transparent financial services.

In the next chapter, we'll explore alt-coins and look at how we can use digital contacts to implement a voting system using a platform called Counterparty.