With all this fuss over ethereum security flaws, can someone explain to me the practical use case for these smart contracts? I just don't understand where the benefit comes in. It seems like any type of contract that would be useful requires a human to qualify the meaning of the terms since these contracts cannot autonomously measure the state of the world.
Even something as trivial as betting on sports requires deference to a trusted authority to say "this team won". What advantages does an ethereum smart contract provide over, say, some kind of trusted bitcoin escrow site?
Even something as trivial as betting on sports requires deference to a trusted authority to say "this team won". What advantages does an ethereum smart contract provide over, say, some kind of trusted bitcoin escrow site?