u/Bisu40

Crypto is supposed to reduce or remove trust when it comes to transferring value between parties.

But in real-world situations like buying something, hiring someone, or making agreements, you still end up trusting the other side to follow through.

Even with smart contracts, there’s often some dependency on off-chain actions or verification.

Why do you think this gap still exists?

Crypto handles transferring value pretty well, but real-world transactions usually involve agreements, conditions, and trust between people.

What do you think is still missing for crypto to handle that side in a practical way?

Most chains are really good at transferring value.

But when it comes to actual agreements between parties — escrow, milestone payments, deposits/refunds — it usually ends up being handled off-chain or through custom app logic.

That feels like a missing primitive.

Right now typical approaches are:

• centralized escrow services
• multisig setups with coordination overhead
• or smart contracts that still rely on external context

I’m wondering whether this should be handled more natively at the protocol level.

For example, a system where:

• agreements define conditions upfront
• funds move based on objective outcomes (timeouts, signatures, proofs)
• no subjective dispute resolution is needed

Basically treating settlement as a first-class concept instead of just transfer.

Curious how people here think about this:

• Is this something that belongs in the base layer?
• Or is it better kept in higher-level abstractions?
• What are the biggest design constraints to keep it objective and trust-minimized?