Fides: Distributed Cyber-Physical Contracts

Abstract

Current work in the field of smart contracts is primarily aimed at developers and directly connected to an underlying cryptocurrency. Those self-enforcing contracts are suitable for financial applications, but often disregard regular agreements that do not rely on digital money or are difficult to specify in the form of program code. In order to promote social interaction and self-organization for all types of users, we present Fides, a framework for creating contracts based on natural language that focuses on security and privacy. The use of natural language, detached from the actual payment process, allows everyone to create digital contracts inside a decentralized peer-to-peer network without relying on an inefficient Blockchain solution. These agreements are not only intended for interactions between humans, but can also be established between devices by automation.