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8 Wake Forest L. Rev. Online 1 (2018)

handle is hein.journals/wflron8 and id is 1 raw text is: HARRY POTTER, ETHEREUM, AND THE BLOCKCHAIN: REVISED IMPLICATIONS AND CURRENT SHORTCOMINGS OF SMART CONTRACTS By Ari Herbert, Imagine a deal that can't be broken. Harry Potter fans will remember the unbreakable vow: two wizards clasp arms, declare their promises, and whisper an incantation.1 A silvery thread of light twists around the enclasped arms and then disappears. The spell is done. The deal can't be broken. This was a major plot tool in the Harry Potter series. But if self-enforcing agreements were real, our commercial world would be very different. Trusted intermediaries and legal enforcement procedures would be less needed. Using blockchain (the same technology underlying Bitcoin), computer programmers are striving to make this a digital reality. They've built Ethereum, a new internet, which can host applications like Gmail and Facebook. Except on Ethereum, applications aren't hosted on company servers. Instead, applications are stored simultaneously on all computers running Ethereum. Like cream cheese spread on toast. In other words, it's decentralized. This decentralized technology has many implications. Already mentioned is the possibility of self-executing agreements called smart contracts. Yet so far, smart contracts have a narrower applicability than envisioned, and there are significant hurdles between present smart-contract use and widespread adoption. Nevertheless, smart contracts are on the rise.2 Thus it's important to update the discussion of this promising commercial tool. Part I of this Essay discusses the implications of smart contracts. In Subpart I.A, this Essay explains how blockchain and smart contracts work. This Essay continues in Subpart 1.B by raising the full gambit of possible benefits from smart contracts, both more and less plausible alike. Part II of this Essay then raises the obstacles that smart contracts face. In Subpart II.A, this Essay raises technological limitations, and Subpart II.B addresses the * Associate, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP; J.D. University of Texas, 2017. 1. J. K. ROWLING, HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE 36-37 (2005). 2. See Confideal, Confideal's Crusade to Harness the Power of Smart Contracts, Bitcoin Mag., https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/confideals-crusade -harness-power-smart-contracts/. 1

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