Lex Financiera Cryptographia

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses the emergence of a lex financiera cryptographia, an ‘international financial and monetary law’ in the context of financial technology (FinTech), which is based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). DLT-based business models often bear characteristics of novelty and hybridity or otherwise sit uneasily within conventional legal and regulatory categories. The chapter also clarifies that the emerging concept of lex financiera as an international financial and monetary law that includes both hard and soft components that are enforced by a mix of national and international institutions. Moreover, this lex financiera cryptographia allows further discernment of the lex mercatoria that recognizes the inherent interconnectedness of normative domains. Thus, the lex financiera cryptographia emerges as a more concrete and and the development of a coherent body of encoded norms—whether those norms have a broader or a narrower relevance for international financial and monetary law.