Legal Recognition of Blockchain Registries and Smart Contracts

Abstract

The interrelatedness between computer systems, networks, code, and traditional law and legal frameworks continues to pose a number of important and vexed questions. This report will consider one area of the relationship: legal recognition of distributed ledger technology (DLT) or blockchain applications. Specifically, registers appended to blockchains (thereby creating “blockchain registries”), and “smart contracts” executed on blockchains