🧮 When markets operate as computers in a programmable economy
2025-10-13Markets become computers when trading rules, clearing, settlement, and governance are executed by software rather than intermediaries, often on programmable public networks. That shift enables automation, composability, and continuous operation, redefining price discovery and access while creating new web3-native primitives. Smart contracts and code-defined incentives coordinate liquidity and collateral without central control, but introduce challenges around security, formal verification, oracle design, latency, and upgrade paths. Regulators and market participants must weigh openness and determinism against systemic risk, complexity, and accountability in code-directed systems. The concept reframes markets as state machines whose transitions are governed by public code and verifiable data, shifting trust assumptions from organizations to computation.
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