Ethereum Pioneer’s New ‘Time Machine’ Makes Transactions Conditional on Future Events

Ethereum, a paramount blockchain due to its programmability and sprawling ecosystem of layer-2 networks, is getting a new dimension: time.

Smart Transactions (STXN), a new project from Vlad Zamfir, who pioneered Ethereum’s proof-of-stake blockchain system, released on Wednesday a platform that will enable applications to execute transactions based on future events.

The new platform, called the “Ethereum time machine,” extends the blockchain’s programming capabilities by allowing smart contracts to execute transactions based on uncertain or not-guaranteed future events.

“For example, a user could stipulate that a trade execute at a specified day and time conditional on a set of prerequisites,” the STXN team wrote in a press release shared with CoinDesk. “These prerequisites could be absolute, such as the dollar value of a particular asset, or relative – for instance, whether one asset is worth more than another. The potential permutations are almost unlimited, greatly increasing the dynamism of the largest blockchain for developers.”

The release comes after STXN announced in July that it would collaborate with Consensys, a major Ethereum development firm, on research that complements Smart Transactions — a feature enabled by Consensys’ Metamask wallets.

“STXN is like a time machine because it allows us to guarantee the future when it comes to smart contracts,” STXN co-founder Anuj Das Gupta said in the press release. “It allows us to travel backward in time as well, in the sense that Ethereum smart contracts are no longer limited by what was known at the time they were written. We believe this is an important solution to the tension between flexibility and immutability when it comes to blockchains.”

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