 A Ricardian contract places the defining elements of a legal agreement in a format that can be expressed and executed in software.The key is to make the format both machine readable, such that they can easily be extracted for computational purposes, and readable as an ordinary text document such that lawyers and contracting parties may read the essentials of the contract conveniently.From a legal perspective, the use of markup language embedded within a mostly legal prose document leads to reduced transaction costs, faster dispute resolution, better enforceability and enhanced transparency.