"some degree of knowledge" is only knowing the basics like how to use a wallet and secure it, for example how to buy and use a hardware wallet! the "public" can easily learn that, it is not rocket science at this level. any deeper is not necessary to use it.
Right. But this works as long as we are only talking about bitcoin. It's code can be deemed trustworthy because of the level of community engagement. It has been proven to work.
Problem arises when you take up more applications of blockchain, like the article argues about smart contracts. Smart contracts have proven themselves to be buggy. The trustlessness feature of smart-contract is dependent on whether you trust the intention and competence of the people who write the code.
(My reply above).
What would be your view on the need to make smart-contracts more accessible??
The idea of smart contracts was brought up at an event on blockchain that I attended recently, and there is still a huge question with smart contracts when it comes to security and making sure the code is reviewed properly. The person who brought up the security in using smart contracts was very adamant that this type of agreement is very unlikely to be accepted by large institutions when issues in coding can costs them up to millions of dollars in funds that will never be able to be brought back. So the response to this from another audience member is that another layer of security would be need to be in place, a higher and centralized authority that would be able to make the call in these types of situations. Is this an idea people would support? Despite it going against the idea of complete decentralization?