# kaal:claim:3266953-015

**Claim.** A pure code is law smart contract between anonymous parties creates a zero sum scenario in which each party is incentivized to deliver only the minimum that satisfies the rigid self executing terms, so this type of business ultimately degenerates.

**Type.** failure  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- self executing contracts between often anonymous parties
- no reputation at stake

**Source quote.**

> This creates a zero-sum scenario where both parties are entirely incentivized to provide the minimum possible to fulfill the perfectly rigid self-executing contract. This type of business ultimately degenerates as people will spend extra effort to deliver the minimum acceptable products.

**From.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Gopinath Sivalingam, *Reputation Protocol for the Internet of Trust - Conceptual Whitepaper* (2018), Motivation, page 11

**Cite as.** Craig Calcaterra, Wulf A. Kaal, Gopinath Sivalingam, Reputation Protocol for the Internet of Trust - Conceptual Whitepaper (2018). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3266953

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `781758dea356e55d79c73ad7f1debe7c83de398bd1cd9e0a9a6c2802f276b4c0` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Calcaterra%20et%20al.%20-%202018%20-%20Reputation%20Protocol%20for%20the%20Internet%20of%20Trust%20-%20Conceptual%20Whitepaper.pdf

**Failure mode.** minimum performance degeneration  (family: smart-contract-rigidity)

**Topics.** smart-contracts

**Keywords.** smart-contracts, code-is-law, zero-sum, contract-degeneration

**Related claims.**

- extended_by: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3782210-042

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of the claim. Its sha256 is the content hash used for attestation.