Recently, Disney+ launched a new series to build on the Star Wars universe called The Mandalorian. It follows a Mandalorian bounty hunter (think Boba Fett) on his adventures tracking down various characters for their bounties.
During a meeting with his handler in trying to acquire new bounties, the Mandalorian makes mention of “chain code” in the terms of taking on a vague underworld contract.
Chain code has never been discussed or defined in the Star Wars universe and the show doesn’t explain it at all, but I firmly believe that they are referring to blockchain (and you will too).
Chain code is code run on the blockchain
That’s the literal name of it IRL.
Also called Smart Contracts or dApps, chain code refers to any code that lives on a blockchain and does stuff automatically.
A great example of this would be to, say, put bounty money in escrow that would automatically be released when the subject is captured and returned.
It allows the bounty hunter to feel secure that payment would come through when terms are met.
Blockchain is the solution for interplanetary transactions
If I make a deal on Coruscant to deliver a prisoner to Naboo, I wouldn’t want to wait or rely on intergalactic transmissions to ensure payment. It would make more sense to confirm against a node (computer) on Naboo that has a copy of the chain code.
Since blockchains are immutable, append-only ledgers that are distributed identically across the galaxy, I can rest assured knowing that I will get payed for my bounty from the chain code and that my handler will be notified of the hand off.
If I were using standard centralized servers, I couldn’t guarantee that my handler didn’t delete or alter the contract – or that the government didn’t seize the assets and shut it all down.
And on top of all that, intergalactic communication take a while even at the speed of light. This distance requires asynchronous systems to have any type of reliability; otherwise I’d be waiting hours for communications to confirm.
In short, chain code via blockchain is the only reasonable solution for bounty hunting baby yodas.
While I’ll trust that your understanding of block chain and chain codes here on earth in the milky way is strong, the chain code is referred to in the Mandalorian seems to be referring to a way to track a being. The chain codes last for digits, for instance, represent the age of the mark. While I do not deny that it may be a piece of code on a Blockchain for keeping the data secure, I think your interpretation is based on keywords instead of actually understanding the lore in any way.
Thanks for that insight! I’ll be the first to admit to a lack of deep lore knowledge. If you have any links to the lore, I’d be happy to add it in the post.