Tezos Foundation Funds Smart Contract Project with Clause

Blockchain developer the Tezos Foundation has announced that it will issue an undisclosed sum as a grant to Clause to develop a smart legal contract layer on top of the Tezos blockchain.

As readers know, Clause is a US-based company that has been working hard on developing the software needed to allow users to negotiate, execute, and monitor the performance of smart legal contracts that connect to web services, enterprise software, and blockchain systems using its platform.

Clause uses technology developed with the Accord Project, an open-source software initiative it established composed of more than 40 leading law firms, IBM, R3, and others that are building tools for legally enforceable smart contracts. It and Accord have also been working hard to develop standards globally for the use of smart contracts.

The news comes a day after IBM and global law firm Herbert Smith Freehills announced the launch of a national blockchain project for Australia that will also support the use of smart contracts.

With this grant, the Clause team will develop an ‘Ergo to Michelson compiler’ to enable a smart legal contract layer to operate on the Tezos blockchain.

And to help explain what this means the company said:

‘Ergo is a domain-specific language that captures the execution logic of legal contracts, and Michelson is a language used to write smart contracts on Tezos. Such technology will enable Tezos to support commercial transactions and practices that are legally enforceable.’ So, there you go.

Jerome Simeon, Chief Scientist at Clause, said of the deal: ‘We are very excited to be developing a legal layer for Tezos. Compiling Ergo to Michelson will allow users to transparently and safely deploy legal contractsfrom Clause onto the Tezos blockchain.

The move comes at a tricky time for the Tezos Foundation, which is understood to be currently facing significant legal action in the US, (external link), in relation to an ICO.