[kaycey2022]

From my understanding a smart contract is like a web backend, with completely transparent business logic and data, so anyone can interact with it without any intermediary. If you can deploy your program (smart contract) on the ethereum blockchain or any of the L2 chains, then all the costs of interacting with it and maintaining its data layer are borne by the market participants.

Because of these properties you can create entirely open market infrastructure that anyone can use, which means reduced compliance costs (measured in opportunity and not money) and regulations for the participants.

On the flip side, the issue is that most people are stupid, don't know shit about what they are doing, and the tech itself is vulnerable to all sorts of race conditions because of flaws in Solidity language and the EVM itself which can enable hacks.

I am personally very sympathetic to the crypto efforts and not as sympathetic with the skeptics, because I find the centralisation of the web by some American players to be more dangerous than some individuals losing their life savings playing on web3.