Smart Contracts and Decentralized Finance
本文解释了智能合约的运作机制，讨论了其优势（如解决承诺问题）和局限（如难以获取链外信息、与传统法律执行整合困难），并综述了去中心化金融中的主要应用，包括代币发行、去中心化交易所和借贷协议。
We explain the mechanics of smart contracts. We then highlight the benefits of smart contracts, such as overcoming commitment problems. We also discuss limitations, such as the difficulty for smart contracts to access information external to the blockchain and the difficulty of integrating smart contract code with traditional legal enforcement. We further highlight how the absence of a trusted intermediary inflates implementation costs for blockchain applications. We conclude with a discussion of the most prominent smart contract applications in decentralized finance: token issuance (e.g., initial coin offerings, nonfungible tokens), decentralized exchanges, and protocols for loanable funds. Our survey covers both institutional details and relevant literature.