Composability is Innovation - a16z crypto

The ability for anyone in a vast network of disconnected, distributed participants to leverage the work of others to create new applications didn’t just arise spontaneously — it required the cooperation of many people. Ethereum smart contract developers enabled composability over time by converging on community standards that describe how certain t... See more

Developers can bootstrap their own projects and communities without having to build everything from scratch, because smart contract platforms like Ethereum are massive, open sandboxes to build systems that can reach a built-in global audience.

Non-crypto businesses can increase efficiency and have more functionality by plugging into open ecosystems like Ethereum — much like the API economy enabled companies of all kinds, including mom-and-pop shops and small businesses, to access data and competencies they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to. An example in the tech space, however, is Re... See more

Smart contracts go beyond simply allowing for instant and verifiable transactions for various applications though — they can also be programmed to interact with each other. In other words, they make crypto programs composable, like building blocks.

As crypto matures, we should expect these composable smart contract building blocks to start getting used outside of the crypto community. Eventually, developers will be able to add just one line of code to add a full decentralized marketplace to a video game, or another line of code to allow merchants in their ecommerce store to earn interest on t... See more