Why Smart Contracts Fall Short Smart contracts were revolutionary, but they carry structural weaknesses that limit their long-term potential: 🎯Scalability: Ethereum’s base layer handled ~15 TPS, and even Hedera’s EVM tops at ~300 TPS . Popular apps like CryptoKitties clogged Ethereum , showing how fragile throughput can be. 🎯Cost: Every operation costs gas. Under heavy load, fees spike to tens or hundreds of dollars. Failed transactions still burn gas . 🎯Security: Code is immutable and hard to audit. Exploits (e.g., The DAO hack in 2016 ) and DeFi breaches continue to cause major losses . 🎯Inflexibility: Once deployed, contracts are extremely hard to upgrade or patch . 🎯Oracle Dependency: Contracts can’t access outside data natively. Reliance on third-party oracles adds vulnerabilities . Despite these flaws, smart contracts dominate due to Ethereum’s first-mover advantage, strong developer community, and established standards (ERC-20, ERC-721) . [1/5 👇]