Sustainable blockchain-enabled services: Smart contracts

Abstract

This chapter contributes to evolving the versatility and complexity of blockchain-enabled services through extending the functionality of blockchain-enforced smart contracts. The contributions include: (i) a method for automated management of contracts with hierarchical conditionality structures through an hierarchy of intelligent agents and the use of hierarchical cryptographic key-pairs; (ii) a method for efficient and secure matching and transfer of smart- contract underlyings (entities) among disparate smart contracts/subcontracts; (iii) a method for producing an hierarchy of common secrets to facilitate hierarchical communication channels of increased security in the context of smart contracts/subcontracts/underlyings; and (iv) a method for building secure and optimized repositories through distributed hash tables in the context of contracts/ subcontracts/underlyings. These methods help providing services that allow both narrower and worldwide reach and distribution of resources. The longevity of the blockchain technology is achieved through continuous innovation. Blockchain-enabled services are potentially an efficient, secure, automated, and cost-effective alternative or complement to current service infrastructures in a range of domains (legal, medical, financial, government, IoT).