Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. I am Corn, and I am sitting here in our living room in Jerusalem with my brother.
Herman Poppleberry, at your service. It is a beautiful day outside, but we are staying in to talk about some pretty heavy-duty tech. Our housemate Daniel sent us a voice note while he was feeding his son, Ezra, and it got us thinking about the systems that actually make the world move, or at least the code that aims to make it move a bit more smoothly.
Yeah, Daniel was asking about smart contracts and blockchain, but specifically the applications that are not just about trading digital coins. He mentioned that he has heard us talk about crypto and the Interplanetary File System before, but he wants to know where this stuff is actually working right now, in February of twenty twenty-six. Specifically, he is interested in how it might help with things like tenancy agreements or situations where you have people with different goals who do not necessarily trust each other.
It is a great prompt because it moves the conversation away from the speculative bubble side of things and into the plumbing of the internet. Most people hear blockchain and they think of a volatile price graph on a screen. But for us, and for anyone looking at the architecture of it, the most interesting part is the smart contract. It is the idea of taking a legal agreement and turning it into code that executes itself when specific conditions are met.
And that phrase, code that executes itself, sounds a bit like science fiction or maybe a bit scary if you are a lawyer. But when you break it down, it is really just a sophisticated version of a vending machine, right?
That is exactly the analogy I love to use. Think about a vending machine. You have a contract with that machine. If you put in two dollars and press button B four, the machine will give you a bag of chips. You do not need a third-party mediator. You do not need to call a lawyer to ensure the machine fulfills its end of the bargain. The rules are baked into the hardware and software of the machine. A smart contract is just that, but for much more complex transactions, and it lives on a decentralized network so no one can unilaterally change the price while your money is mid-air.
Okay, so if we take that vending machine logic and apply it to Daniel's question about tenancy, I can see why he is interested. If you are a tenant and your landlord is not fixing the heater in the middle of winter, usually your only recourse is a long, expensive, and stressful legal battle. But how do we get from a vending machine to a smart lease?
This is where we get into the meat of it. But before we dive into the tenancy stuff, we should look at where this is already happening successfully at scale. Because it is not just theoretical anymore. One of the biggest areas is actually in pharmaceutical supply chain management. Have you been following the progress of the MediLedger network?
I have heard the name, but give me the updated details for twenty twenty-six.
So, in the pharmaceutical industry, there is a massive problem with counterfeit drugs and fragmented data. Under the Drug Supply Chain Security Act, which saw full implementation over the last year or so, the industry had to move to electronic, interoperable tracking. MediLedger uses a blockchain-based system to track the change of ownership of prescription medicine. When a bottle of pills moves from the manufacturer to the wholesaler to the pharmacy, every step is recorded. And here is the smart contract part: the system can automatically verify that the person selling the drug is authorized to do so and that the product is authentic. If the data does not match the history, the transaction literally cannot happen. It is not just a record of what happened; it is a gatekeeper that prevents the wrong thing from happening in the first place.
That makes sense for high-value, highly regulated goods. But what about the objective measurement part Daniel mentioned? Because a bottle of pills is a physical object, but a lot of contracts depend on things that are harder to measure, like quality or environmental conditions.
That is where we talk about parametric insurance. This is probably the most successful and practical use of smart contracts right now. Imagine you are a farmer in a developing nation. You rely on rain for your crops. Usually, if there is a drought, you have to file an insurance claim, wait for an adjuster to fly out, look at your dead corn, write a report, and then maybe you get a check six months later. By then, you are already out of business.
Right, the delay is the killer.
Exactly. With a smart contract for parametric insurance, like what platforms such as Arbol or Etherisc are doing, the contract is linked to an oracle. An oracle is just a piece of software that feeds real-world data into the blockchain. In this case, it would be high-resolution satellite weather data. The contract says: if the rainfall in this specific coordinate is less than ten centimeters between June and August, pay this farmer five thousand dollars immediately.
And because the data is objective, there is no argument.
None. The insurance company cannot say, well, we do not think it was that dry. The satellite says it was. The code sees the data, the condition is met, and the money is transferred to the farmer's wallet instantly. No litigation, no claims adjusters, no paperwork. That is the objective measurement Daniel was asking about.
Okay, so let us take that logic and bring it home, literally. Daniel's example of tenancy arrangements. This feels like the final boss of smart contracts because housing is so personal and the power dynamic is so skewed. In Jerusalem, or London, or New York, the landlord usually holds all the cards. They have the deposit, they own the building, and they have more resources for legal fights. How does a smart contract change that?
It changes the default state of the relationship. Right now, the default state is that the landlord holds your money and you have to prove you deserve it back. In a smart contract tenancy, the deposit could be held in an escrow account governed by code.
So, not in the landlord's bank account.
Right. It is in a neutral digital vault. Now, let us say the lease ends. The smart contract could be programmed with a set of conditions. If both parties sign off that the place is clean, the money is released instantly. But what if they disagree? This is where it gets interesting. You could have a decentralized dispute resolution layer. Instead of going to a government court which might take a year, the contract could trigger a mini-arbitration through a protocol like Kleros.
Wait, that sounds a bit like a jury of strangers on the internet. Is that really better than a judge?
For a two thousand dollar security deposit? Probably. It is faster and cheaper. But even before you get to the dispute, think about the repairs. Daniel mentioned conflicting incentives. A landlord is incentivized to spend as little as possible on maintenance. A tenant wants everything fixed yesterday. Imagine a smart lease connected to a smart thermostat or a leak sensor.
I see where you are going. If the sensor detects a leak and it is not fixed within forty-eight hours, the smart contract automatically reduces the next month's rent by twenty percent.
Precisely. You have just removed the need for the tenant to beg or threaten. The penalty is baked into the agreement. It is an objective measurement. The moisture sensor says there is water on the floor. The repairman's digital signature is not on the system yet. Therefore, the rent is lowered. It aligns the incentives. Suddenly, the landlord is very motivated to fix that leak because the cost of ignoring it is automatic and guaranteed.
It is a fascinating idea, but I have to play the skeptic for a second. We live in the real world. Sensors break. Batteries die. Someone might spill a glass of water on the sensor just to get a rent discount. How do we deal with the fact that code is rigid but life is messy?
That is the big hurdle, and it is why we are not seeing this in every apartment building yet. We call it the oracle problem. If the data going into the contract is wrong or can be manipulated, the contract is useless. This is why the first successful deployments are in areas where the data is very hard to fake, like satellite weather data or shipping container GPS coordinates. For a house, you would need a very robust network of sensors, or perhaps a trusted third-party inspector who enters a digital key. But even then, you are back to trusting a person.
Right, so we haven't completely removed trust; we've just moved it to a different part of the process.
Exactly. But moving it can still be a huge improvement. Trusting a specialized sensor or a third-party inspector is often better than trusting someone who has a direct financial interest in screwing you over.
That is a fair point. I want to go back to something Daniel mentioned, which was other uses for blockchain besides currency. We have talked about supply chains and insurance. What about identity? I know that is a big topic in the space right now, especially with the new digital identity frameworks launching in Europe.
Oh, decentralized identity, or Self-Sovereign Identity, is huge. Think about how many times a day you have to prove who you are online. You use your Google account, or your Facebook account, or you upload a scan of your passport to some random website. You are essentially giving these big companies control over your digital soul.
And they can turn it off whenever they want.
They can. And they can see everything you do. A blockchain-based identity system allows you to own your own data using what we call Verifiable Credentials. Instead of showing a website your whole passport just to prove you are over eighteen, you can provide what is called a zero-knowledge proof. It is a mathematical way for the blockchain to tell the website, yes, this person is over eighteen, without giving them your name, your birthday, or your address.
That is incredible from a privacy perspective. It is like showing a bouncer a light that turns green if you are old enough, rather than handing him your ID card.
That is a perfect analogy. And it applies to everything. Academic credentials, for example. If you graduate from a university, they can issue a digital diploma on the blockchain. When you apply for a job, the employer does not have to call the university registrar and wait for a transcript. They just check the blockchain. It is an objective, unforgeable record of your achievement.
I can see how that would be useful for freelancers too. If you have a history of successful projects and happy clients, having that recorded on an immutable ledger is a lot more valuable than a LinkedIn profile that anyone can pad out with buzzwords.
Definitely. It is about building a reputation that you actually own. It is not tied to a specific platform. If that platform goes under, your reputation survives.
Let us circle back to the litigation aspect. Daniel was asking about alternative pathways to litigation. We talked about the tenancy example with the sensors and the automatic rent reduction. But what about larger scale things? Like international trade? If a company in Israel is buying microchips from a company in Taiwan, and there is a dispute, which country's laws apply? Where do you go to court?
That is a nightmare for small and medium businesses. They often just avoid international trade because the legal risk is too high. Smart contracts can act as a sort of international digital law. You can use something like the Kleros protocol. It is an online dispute resolution system that uses game theory to incentivize jurors to reach a fair decision.
How does that work? How do you make sure the jurors are not just guessing?
It is based on something called a Schelling point. Basically, the jurors are rewarded if they vote with the majority and penalized if they are in the minority. Since they do not know how others are voting, their best strategy for getting a reward is to try and figure out what the most honest, obvious answer is, because that is what they expect other honest people will also choose.
It sounds a bit like a high-stakes game of common sense.
It is! And it works surprisingly well for things like website design disputes or freelance coding jobs. It is not going to replace the Supreme Court for complex constitutional issues, but for the millions of small-scale disputes that currently have no realistic legal path, it is a game changer. It provides a way to get a resolution in days for a few dollars, rather than years for thousands of dollars.
It feels like we are talking about a shift from a world governed by slow, human-centric institutions to one governed by fast, math-centric systems. Which brings me to a question I have been wanting to ask you, Herman. If we automate all this, if we make everything objective and automatic, do we lose the human element of mercy or context? A judge can look at a tenant who missed rent because they were in the hospital and say, okay, I will give you an extra week. A smart contract just sees the date and locks the door.
That is the dark side of it, and it is a very real concern. We call it the rigidity of code. Code has no heart. It does not care that your grandmother is sick. This is why the design of these contracts is so important. You can build in grace periods. You can build in hooks for human intervention. But you are right, the more we automate, the more we have to be careful about what we are losing. We want to remove the unfairness of power imbalances, but we do not want to remove the fairness of human empathy.
It is a delicate balance. It is like we are trying to build a better skeleton for society, but we still need the muscle and the heart to make it move in a way that is actually good for people.
I think that is exactly right. And that is why these early experiments are so important. We are learning where the friction is. We are learning that you cannot just replace a landlord with an algorithm and expect everything to be perfect. But if you can use the algorithm to handle the ninety percent of things that are objective, then the humans can focus their energy on the ten percent that actually require empathy and judgment.
So, instead of a judge spending all day looking at photos of dirty carpets, they can spend their time on cases that actually matter.
Precisely. It is about efficiency and access to justice. Most people in the world today have zero access to justice for small disputes. If a smart contract gives them even a sixty percent fair outcome, that is infinitely better than the zero percent they have now.
That is a powerful way to look at it. It is not about perfect justice; it is about better-than-nothing justice for the majority of people.
Exactly. And we are seeing this start to bubble up in other areas too. Look at the music industry. For decades, artists have been complaining about how long it takes to get paid and how opaque the process is. A song gets played on the radio, and the money goes through five different agencies before a few cents land in the artist's pocket eighteen months later.
I remember we touched on this in our episode about impact bonds, but the mechanics there are similar, right?
Very similar. There are platforms now where the second you stream a song, a smart contract splits that tiny fraction of a cent and sends it directly to the wallets of the singer, the songwriter, the producer, and the drummer. No middleman, no eighteen-month delay. It is objective measurement of a stream, followed by automatic execution of a payment.
That is a huge win for the creators. It feels like the common thread here is the removal of the gatekeeper. Whether it is a landlord, an insurance company, a record label, or a government registrar, the blockchain and smart contracts are about giving that power back to the individuals involved in the agreement.
It is the democratization of trust. We used to have to trust the big institution. Now, we can trust the math. And while math can be cold, it is also incredibly fair if you set it up correctly.
So, if we are looking for practical takeaways for our listeners, what should they be watching for? If someone is a tenant or a small business owner, is there something they can actually use today?
Well, we are still in the early adopter phase for a lot of this. But if you are in the tech space, you should be looking at things like Safe, which is a platform for managing shared digital assets. If you are a freelancer, you might look into platforms like Gitcoin for project funding and dispute resolution. And if you are just a curious observer, pay attention to how your bank or your insurance company is talking about their backend systems. A lot of them are moving to blockchain-based ledgers without even telling the customers, just because it is so much more efficient for them.
It is the invisible revolution. The front end looks the same, but the plumbing is being replaced.
Exactly. And for the tenancy thing Daniel mentioned, keep an eye on projects like Propy or other real estate focused blockchain companies. They are working on the legal frameworks to make smart leases a reality. It might start with commercial leases first, because those are more complex and have more money involved, but it will eventually trickle down to residential.
I can imagine a world where your apartment comes with a digital twin on the blockchain. Every repair, every rent payment, every inspection is recorded there. When you move out, that record is your proof of being a good tenant, which helps you get your next place.
And it helps the next tenant know that the landlord actually fixes things. It is a two-way street of accountability. That is the real promise here. It is not just about the technology; it is about the culture of transparency it creates.
It is a lot to take in, but it makes me more optimistic about the future of these technologies than just hearing about the latest price of Bitcoin.
I agree. It is the boring stuff that is actually the most exciting. The logistics, the insurance, the identity, the contracts. That is the stuff that builds a more functional world.
Well, I think we have given Daniel a lot to chew on while he is feeding Ezra. It is fascinating to think about how these abstract concepts of code and math might eventually make life a little bit easier for a tenant in Jerusalem or a farmer in Kenya.
It is the goal. Technology should serve people, not the other way around. And I think smart contracts, when designed with care, have the potential to do exactly that.
Absolutely. Well, Herman, I think we have covered a lot of ground today. From pharmaceutical supply chains to leaky roofs and music royalties. It is a wide world out there.
It certainly is. And I am sure we will be talking about this again as the technology matures. There is always a new angle to explore.
Definitely. Before we wrap up, I want to say a huge thank you to Daniel for sending in that prompt. It is always great to have a starting point that comes from real-world questions and situations.
Yeah, thanks Daniel. And to all of you listening, if you have your own weird prompts or questions about how the world is changing, please get in touch. We love diving into these topics.
And hey, if you have been enjoying the show and you have been with us for a while, we would really appreciate it if you could leave us a quick review on your podcast app or on Spotify. It genuinely helps other people find the show and it means a lot to us.
It really does. We love seeing the community grow.
You can find all our past episodes, all five hundred and seventy-nine of them now, at our website, myweirdprompts.com. There is a contact form there too if you want to send us a message. We are also on Spotify and pretty much everywhere else you get your podcasts.
Thanks for joining us today in our living room. It has been a pleasure as always.
This has been My Weird Prompts. I am Corn.
And I am Herman Poppleberry.
We will see you next time. Goodbye!
Goodbye!
