Through the crypto ages there has been a lot of talk about Smart Contracts (SC in this article) and it wouldn't be a surprise if you still have no idea what they are. Even though they are often talked about and people throw around how certain exchanges and wallets support SC it is both hard to find a singular detailed explanation and even if you do it might still not be understandable as to what it's use cases are. So while trying to explain it to myself I shall also attempt to explain it to you guys so we can all be less uneducated together.
So, let's start with the very basics, smart contracts are code that has been stored on the blockchain, this code runs (activates) once certain predetermined conditions are met. As you can imagine they are "Digital Contracts", automated so they execute the agreement on the contract in a way where all participants are certain of the final outcome (whatever it is that is agreed upon in the contract) and are done immediately with no time loss. Everything we talk about should be compared to Regular Contracts we have in every day life which we have to read, sign, than file the paperwork... a lot of boring and tedious work that can be done easily through SC. Once an SC is on the blockchain it can't be changed but can be reused an indefinite number of times if it is something that is re-doable.
An important thing to note is that despite contracts being secure they are still similarly dependent on one factor, a human, aka the programmer. So how good a SC is depends on how it is implemented and what has been implemented as there are exceptions/bugs/hacks that can happen within them as well if they are not properly set up or if they are intentionally made in such a way.
What are their exact uses in crypto then, you may ask, and the simplest and most useful would be allowing transactions and exchanges between people and between people and exchanges. So if you want to buy 500 ECoin and pay 500 ECookie for it, you can since there is a smart contract that allows this transaction to go through if you have the funds for it. Simple as that.
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Something I want to note also is the fact that Ethereum is the most prominent blockchain that uses SC and is usually said to be the most simple and easy to implement of the most popular ones. It's simple and easy in no small part due to SC's and many other features as well.
There is a lot of info on how else SC's can be used, more examples and implementations, in depth-guide and such, but what I wanted to do through this article was give you the simplest possible explanation as to what these people be talking about so much. And now hopefully after this it'll be easier to read and understand other articles on this topic.
Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it and if I made a mistake somewhere feel free to tell me so I can change it.
