Ethereum smart contracts

Smart contracts in Ethereum present an exciting opportunity to create financial products that can function without banks or other third party intermediaries. For example, bonds and financial derivatives created on the blockchain automate the dispersal of funds. And, people can choose to run independent Kickstarter campaigns without paying any middlemen (albeit without the discoverability that may help them reach their goals).

But, this only works if everyone involved can understand and trust the contracts that they're agreeing to. While the beauty of this system is that it's fully decentralized, there's a need for a service like LegalZoom to help people find commonly used contracts that are trustworthy. Worse than legalese, these contracts are truly unintelligible to most lay people. And, without mechanisms for reparations when there's good faith misinterpretation or foul play, it'll be a while before they go mainstream.