What Is a Smart Contract?

This report provides an educational overview of smart contracts, explaining their origin, typical lifecycle (deployment, validation, execution), key characteristics (decentralized, immutable, transparent), common applications (DeFi, NFTs, supply chain, healthcare, real estate), benefits (efficiency, security, cost reduction), and risks (code vulnerabilities, irreversibility, scalability, development complexity). It emphasizes the importance of professional security audits but does not present any incident details, threat actor activity, or exploit indicators.