[Jabanga]

It's possible to create a self-executing contract on Ethereum that will automatically send a pre-agreed amount of ether when you make a pre-agreed online bank transfer. In other words, it's possible to have exchange between fiat currencies and cryptocurrency without any need for trust, except in relation to whatever risk there is for each counter-party to report the other for participating in that particular transaction.

[mbrock]

That sounds very difficult. How would you make such a smart contract?

[Jabanga]

You would use trusted hardware like Intel SGX to provide proof of untampered processing of a set of data. Town Crier already has a proof of concept on the Ethereum blockchain. This allows one to prove to a smart contract that a webpage served by a particular PKI certificate holder contains some set of data.