A crash course in blockchain at ABA Techshow started Friday with Oliver Goodenough instructing participants to repeat after him its more useful generic description, "distributed ledger technology."

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Each party on a blockchain has access to the entire database and its complete history. No single party controls the data or the information. Every party can verify the records of its transaction partners directly, without an intermediary.

Smart contracts are not necessarily meant to be legally enforceable, and their formation varies depending on the nature of the agreement between the parties, Mr Trinca added. “The point about smart contracts is that they’re not actually ‘smart’ because they just do wha...