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382 results · page 15 of 16
Mathieu Amsler, My Chau Bachelard, Line Elodie Derungs, Martin Eckert · 20 authors
No abstract is available for this record.
Aaron Wright, Primavera De Filippi
Since Bitcoin appeared in 2009, the digital currency has been hailed as an Internet marvel and decried as the preferred transaction vehicle for all manner of criminals. It has left nearly everyone without a computer science degree confused: Just how do you “mine” money from ones and zeros?\nThe answer lies in a technology called blockchain, which can be used for much more than Bitcoin. A general-purpose tool for creating secure, decentralized, peer-to-peer applications, blockchain technology has been compared to the Internet itself in both form and impact. Some have said this tool may change society as we know it. Blockchains are being used to create autonomous computer programs known as “smart contracts,” to expedite payments, to create financial instruments, to organize the exchange of data and information, and to facilitate interactions between humans and machines. The technology could affect governance itself, by supporting new organizational structures that promote more democratic and participatory decision making.\nPrimavera De Filippi and Aaron Wright acknowledge this potential and urge the law to catch up. That is because disintermediation—a blockchain’s greatest asset—subverts critical regulation. By cutting out middlemen, such as large online operators and multinational corporations, blockchains run the risk of undermining the capacity of governmental authorities to supervise activities in banking, commerce, law, and other vital areas. De Filippi and Wright welcome the new possibilities inherent in blockchains. But as Blockchain and the Law makes clear, the technology cannot be harnessed productively without new rules and new approaches to legal thinking.
Jiang, Jiaying
No abstract is available for this record.
김제완
이더리움(Etherium)은 이른바 ‘스마트 계약(Smart Contract)’이라는 이름으로 블록체인 기술(Blockchain technology)을 이용하여 체결 뿐 아니라 이행까지도 고도로 자동화된 계약의 개념을 제시한 바 있다. 이 글은 이와 같은 스마트계약의 개념과 특징을 살펴보면서, 블록체인 기술이 계약법적으로 적용되는 경우 어떠한 법적 쟁점이 있는지에 관하여 살피고 있다.
Edmund Schuster
No abstract is available for this record.
Charlotta Kronblad, Helena Haapio
Smart contracts are becoming all smarter and increasingly available. Yet there seems to be a reluctance in mainstream industry to actually use them. It seems hard to convince general counsel, law firms, and purchasers of legal services to implement smart systems. This is a challenge for the providers of smart technology. The technology is not the problem - successful implementation is. The aim of this paper is to explore the resistance and gatekeepers within the legal industry, potentially resulting in a better understanding of how to overcome the barriers and use available smart technology. © 2018 Editions Weblaw. All rights reserved.
Jeffrey M. Lipshaw
“Smart contracts” are a hot topic. Presently, smart contracts are mostly evidence of property, like cryptocurrencies or mortgages, created and/or transferred using blockchain technology. This is an exploration of the theoretical possibilities of artificial intelligence in a far broader range of complex and heretofore negotiated transactions that occur over time. My goal is to understand what it means to make a contract smarter, i.e. to delegate more and more of the creation, performance, and disposition of legally binding transactions to machine thinking. Moreover, I want to do so from the perspective of one who is neither a true believer in the purported technological singularity to come nor a digital Luddite.
Charlotte R. Young
Society is progressing at a rapid pace. As math and science evolve, new technologies begin to utilize these advances and create something novel. These technological changes are revolutionizing not only the science-oriented industries, but also the humanities. One such example falls within the legal arena. More specifically, the exciting advent of smart contracts and their use of technological changes are altering the way law is processed and practiced. However, as is often the case, new technological innovations spur certain growing pains. The implementation of smart contracts is proving no different. Some view the smart contract as the start of a more ideal society. With the aid of smart contracts and blockchain technology, machines can finally be equipped to fulfill some of the most basic human functions. Not only would business transactions always occur in a timely, seamless, and cost-effective manner, but also more mundane life tasks, such as ordering laundry detergent, could soon be done via smart contract technology. As exciting as these changes may be, smart contracts and the blockchain technology behind them are still immature. Before this legal phenomenon is widely accepted, there needs to be more advancement in not only the code that creates the technology, but also in the law and its regulations. As it stands today, smart contracts are most likely to be accepted only in part, and heavily tailored to meet each contracting party’s needs. This Note will start by giving an overview of the technology needed to implement smart contracts—blockchain technology—and an explanation of how smart contracts fit within the framework of a blockchain. Next, this Note will discuss some of the major issues smart contracts face. Such issues include: the need to translate natural language into computer code, the traditional concept of contracting in conjunction with the effect of smart contracts on traditional legal notions, and reoccurring enforcement issues. After discussing smart contracts and the current issues barring wide-spread acceptance, this Note will explore the future of smart contracts in the legal arena by analogizing such an electronic contracting change to the now-widely accepted electronic clickwrap agreements. Additionally, this Note will explore recently enacted state statutes that create favorable legal conditions for smart contracts and what impact, if any, these statutes may have upon federal legislation. Furthermore, this Note will analyze the lack of and potential need for regulations regarding smart contracts. In an attempt to make smart contracts acceptable, this Note will suggest future regulations focus on two components of smart contracts. As it will be discussed, regulations should require smart contracts to utilize a permissioned ledger and focus on ensuring the legal requirement of mutuality between the two contracting parties. Lastly, this Note will conclude that although the publicity surrounding smart contracts is exciting and innovative, this form of contracting is likely to remain in a controlled business environment with implementation under select circumstances.
Evgeniy Shishkin
We describe our efforts towards building a tool that automatically verify high-level functional properties of Ethereum smart contracts against its formal specification that can be given using four different methods: an invariant over contract state or three different types of trace properties. A model of runtime system, the source code of smart contract together with its specification is translated into SMT-solver formula and checked for counter example. We tested the method on simplified version of notorious TheDAO smart-contract, called MiniDAO. Our proof-of-concept tool was able to find a functional property violation of MiniDAO in just several seconds. We believe that the proposed method is indeed useful and deserves deeper investigation.
Jason Grant Allen
No abstract is available for this record.
Dimitrios Linardatos
No abstract is available for this record.
Mykyta Sokolov
No abstract is available for this record.
David Berger
No abstract is available for this record.
David Fox
Abstract This chapter focuses on the characterisation and treatment of cryptocurrencies in the common law of property, using Bitcoin as the main example. It first examines how a crypto-coin might be viewed as an object of property, and more specifically whether it could make a suitable object for any regime of property rights at all, before discussing the fungibility, specificity, scarcity and exclusivity of cryptocurrencies in the context of property law. It then considers whether crypto-coins fall into either of the two conventionally recognised categories of personal property: choses in possession or choses in action. It also explores the applicability of rules of derivative transfer of title to crypto-coin transactions, and how the standard rules of following and tracing may be used for the identification and tracing of cryptocurrencies through mixtures. Finally, it looks at remedies available at common law and in equity for enforcing titles to cryptocurrencies.
Eric Tjong Tjin Tai
Abstract: A classic legal problem is whether breach of contract may give rise to a remedy. Under common law this is discussed under the doctrine of excuses. Its civil lawequivalent is the attributability of causes of non-performance of an obligation, and its converse, force majeure. Despite the variety of approaches in various jurisdictions, the general outlines are roughly equivalent as far as translation into smart contracts is concerned: the main issue is what is the cause of non-performance and whether this cause can be attributed. Smart contracts can deal with the general outline of this structure, but may in practice only approximate the refinement that contract law offers. Themain problems are: determining the actual cause of the non-performance by means of automated oracles or the smart contract on its own (without relying on human judgment), dealing with multiple causality and impediments due to the creditor, determining attributability of the cause of non-performance. Smart contracts may offer no more than an approximation of the detailed rules of contract law, by hard-and-fast rules. This may suffice for certain categories of contracts, but may need additional effort to obtain a closer approximation of contract law rules where larger interests are concerned. The related doctrine of withholding performance is similarly difficult to realize appropriately in smart contracts. As regards hardship or unforeseen circumstances, it is best to disallow this in smart contracts,which leaves open the questionwhether partiesmight go to court for relief. The reliance on oracles furthermore opens a weakness to the automatic performance of smart contracts, due to possible liability of oracles for perceived incorrect assessment.
Marcelo Corrales Compagnucci, Paulius Jurčys, George Kousiouris
No abstract is available for this record.
Helen Eenmaa, María José Schmidt-Kessen
Smart contracts, self-executing agreements based on blockchain technology, have the capacity to create trust in what we term no-trust contracting environments. We argue that using them in such environments is the path to unleash the full potential of smart contracts. Compared to the contract enforcement mechanisms characterized by traditional contract law or relational contracts, smart contracts can offer a superior solution for facilitating trade. Several lawyers and economists have debated whether smart contracts might offer the prospect of cheaper, faster and better transactions. As we discuss below, contract law scholars caution that they neither replicate the relational context essential for the day-to-day practice of contracting nor offer a superior solution to problems addressed by traditional contract law, such as contract validity and legality. We clarify and systematize the current thinking on the legal nature and reliability of smart contracts, and address the concerns of contract law scholars. While doing that, we suggest a step forward in characterizing contracting environments, contract enforcement mechanisms and the trust relationship underlying contracts.
Andreas Glarner, Stephan Meyer
Die Entwicklung von Blockchain-Technologie und Smart-Contract-Applikationen macht es erstmals möglich, Softwaresysteme zu bauen, welche das dezentrale Halten und Transferieren von Vermögenswerten ohne Intermediäre erlauben. Die Autoren zeigen in diesem Beitrag anhand verschiedener Fallgruppen auf, wie Smart Contracts im Rahmen von Escrow-Verhältnissen genutzt werden können und welche rechtlichen Fragen sich dabei stellen.
Anne-Claire Mansion
International audience
Jakub J. Szczerbowski
Smart contracts are technically defined as an event-driven programs, with state, that run on a distributed, decentralized, shared and replicated ledger (blockchain) and that can take custody over and transfer assets on the ledger. This new invention enables declarations of will to be expressed as self-executing computer code. The fact that smart contracts can transfer assets without the need for judicial system creates many questions about their place in the civil law. Also, it raises a question about their legality. This paper explores some basic concepts related to smart contracts and tries to set boundaries to their legality in the framework of civil law in scope of form and interpretation.
Sara Hourani
No abstract is available for this record.
Jerry I-H Hsiao, Ph. D.
No abstract is available for this record.
Jeremy Barnett, Philip Treleaven
Legal Services industries are entering a period of major disruption caused by new legal technologies (LawTech), such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain. An area already undergoing major innovation is alternative dispute resolution (Alternative Dispute Resolution (2017) Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_dispute_resolution), especially automated online dispute resolution (Online Dispute Resolution (2017) Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_dispute_resolution; Katsh, E. and Rifkin, J. (2001) Online Dispute Resolution: Resolving Conflicts in Cyberspace. Jossey-Bass Wiley, New Jersey). In terms of LawTech, we broadly divide online dispute resolution into (a) Consumer ODR—uses technology to facilitate the resolution of disputes between ecommerce parties, typically online suppliers and consumers; (b) Judicial ODR—covers any means of settling ‘ordinary’ disputes where there is a hearing (using technology) but outside of the courtroom, such as divorce or personal injury cases; and what we refer to as (c) Corporate ODR—the use of technology to manage the resolution of any contractual disputes that may emerge from major multi-partner projects or financial transactions. This paper focuses on ODR and specifically the future use of automating anticipatory Corporate dispute resolution using AI and blockchain technologies. The paper describes the legal sector, and how it is being radically transformed by computer science.
María Claudia Solarte-Vásquez, Katrin Nyman-Metcalf
Abstract Smart contracting (SC) is a proactive proposal to operationalize the relational contract theory for the upgrade and improvement of legally relevant exchange. The dynamic institutional environment of the European Union (EU) is a suitable framework for this proposal. SC addresses the interests of the business management, law and information technology practices with a perspective of influence in digital exchange, communication processes and other human and human-machine interactions. This position paper restates the advantages of the concept by highlighting the practical transition pathway SC offers to moderate the growing haste towards the embeddedness of exchange in automated and distributed models. This theoretical contribution supports the systematization of the proactive and legal design research field, and explains the characterization, operationalization and specification of the SC concept.