The modern development of decentralized ledger and blockchain technologies has led to the emergence of smart contracts, which are becoming an important tool in the digital economy, transforming existing understandings of the conclusion and fulfillment of obligations in the digital environment. The authors believe that recognizing the objective multi-paradigmatic nature of this phenomenon will not only facilitate the integration of modern technological advances into the legal system but also stimulate the growth of an innovative economy, increase trust in digital platforms, and ensure their adaptation to the rapidly changing conditions of the digital market. The conclusions include proposals for legislative development based on a multi-paradigmatic approach, which assumes a comprehensive understanding of the legal status of smart contracts, taking into account technological, legal, and socioeconomic aspects. This, according to the authors, will help identify the most promising ways to integrate digital contractual instruments into the modern legal system.
Huei-Wen Teng, Wolfgang Karl Härdle, Joerg Osterrieder, Daniel Traian Pele · 31 authors
Digital assets (DAs) such as cryptocurrencies, tokenized securities, stablecoins, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and central bank digital currencies, are transforming financial markets with new business models, investment opportunities, and transaction efficiencies. Underpinned by blockchain, distributed ledger technology, and smart contracts, digital innovations are reshaping the financial ecosystem. However, their rapid growth introduces substantial risks, including fraud, market manipulation, cybersecurity threats, and regulatory uncertainty. This position paper offers an interdisciplinary and empirically grounded analysis of the DA landscape. We define and classify major asset types, trace their evolution from speculative instruments to functional tools, and assess current adoption trends. Additional technological developments (e.g., decentralized finance and NFT expansion) are examined for their role in accelerating this transformation. We also analyze the global regulatory landscape, highlighting jurisdictional differences, classification challenges, and emerging governance frameworks. To address key risks, we derive mitigation strategies via quantitative analysis and case-based evidence. The risks include balancing innovation with investor protection through adaptive regulatory design, promoting cross-border regulatory harmonization to prevent arbitrage and fragmentation, and supporting experimentation through regulatory sandboxes and innovation hubs. By adopting a forward-looking, evidence-based, and collaborative regulatory approaches, stakeholders can harness the benefits of DAs while managing systemic risks and maintaining market integrity.
The financial technology (FinTech) revolution, driven by Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), presents a watershed moment for global commerce and law. At its core, DLT, encompassing cryptocurrency, blockchain, and smart contracts, challenges the foundational principles of traditional finance and legal jurisprudence: intermediation, jurisdiction, and contract enforceability. This paper analyzes the critical legal dimensions emerging from this technological shift, moving beyond an initial period of regulatory uncertainty toward a new era of targeted legislation and landmark litigation. Specifically, it examines the fragmented global regulatory response to crypto-assets (e.g., the EU's MiCA and US legislative efforts), the legal complexity of classifying DLT assets, the disruptive potential and data privacy concerns of non-currency blockchain applications, and the profound jurisprudential conflict between the deterministic "code is law" ethos of smart contracts and the flexibility of common and civil law traditions. The paper concludes that DLT presents a significant legal opportunity to enhance transparency and efficiency, but only through the establishment of nuanced, principle-based regulatory frameworks that can reconcile decentralized technology with the imperative of financial stability, consumer protection, and equitable legal recourse.
This article examines the legal nature of smart contracts and their compatibility with the legal system of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Smart contracts are defined as a hybrid legal mechanism arising from the convergence of classical contract law and blockchain technology. The author argues that automated execution of contractual obligations significantly reshapes traditional legal concepts of consent and performance. The study provides a comparative analysis of international regulatory approaches to smart contracts, focusing on the United States, the European Union, and selected Asian countries. Key principles such as technological neutrality, functional equivalence, and human oversight are assessed. This comparative perspective highlights the growing role of smart contracts beyond purely commercial transactions. The article evaluates Azerbaijani legislation, including the Civil Code, the Law on Electronic Signature and Electronic Document, and the Digital Development Concept, as a normative foundation for smart contracts. It concludes that the existing legal framework offers sufficient grounds for recognizing smart contracts as legally valid electronic agreements. The author emphasizes the potential application of smart contracts in digital government, e-services, and public procurement as part of Azerbaijan’s broader digital transformation agenda
This article examines the probative value of blockchain (distributed ledger technology) in legal proof. It highlights the technology’s core features—decentralization, immutability, cryptography, and time-stamping—and assesses how they fit within rules of evidence, particularly the requirements of electronic writing and electronic signature. The study also discusses the extent of legislative recognition in Morocco and comparative systems, with a focus on identity attribution and the link between a digital record and its author. It concludes that blockchain records may carry increasing persuasive force, while full evidentiary equivalence requires clearer regulatory frameworks and trusted digital services to ensure integrity and reliability.
The subject of the stud y is a digital token in a cross–border payment infrastructure (hereinafter referred to as CBPI) based on distributed ledger technology (hereinafter referred to as DLT). The purpose of the work is to analyze and scientifically evaluate methodological approaches to the formation of CBPI. The relevance of the work is due to the atmosphere of uncertainty and growing risks of external impact on the cross-border payment infrastructure that the Russian Federation has faced in recent years, as well as the need to address the challenge of ensuring accessibility, continuity, sustainability and security of its operation. As a result of the research, using heterodox, systemic, structural-functional, cybernetic, pragmatic and institutional approaches, the economic characteristics of the payment token have been developed and presented, including the most significant ones for the smooth implementation of cross-border payment transactions. It is concluded that the existing approaches make it possible to determine the main economic characteristics of a digital token in a cross-border payment infrastructure based on DLT, including security, cost stability, liquidity, volatility, as well as auxiliary ones — interoperability, scalability, transactional neutrality, economic isolation.
N K Vasilieva, J. D. Darmilova, А.П. ГОРБАТКО, A. N. Kalinichenko
This article examines the concept of cryptocurrency and its specific features. Based on the collection and analysis of information, the paper identifies the dual nature of cryptocurrency, which manifests itself both in the provision of new financial opportunities and in the expansion of corruption and fraudulent schemes. The article explores legal measures and approaches to combating cryptocurrency-related offenses, as well as current methods of detecting corruption involving cryptocurrencies.
J. D. C. Vergara, D. E. Burdin, R.H. Davletbaev, Д. К. Д. Вергара · 6 authors
In the context of the digitalization of the economy, the problem of organizing effective document management in the non-profit sector has become particularly pressing. Traditional methods of managing information flows struggle to fully adapt to the requirements of transparency, accountability, and the legal significance of data. This article proposes a methodological approach to solving the document management problem based on the integration of distributed ledger technologies and smart contracts. A conceptual model of digital document management has been developed, in which each business event is represented as a smart document with legal verification in a blockchain environment. The paper describes in detail the stages of architecture development, the algorithms for interaction between participants, and the mechanisms for ensuring the immutability of records. The obtained results make it possible to increase transparency and trust between participants in non-profit organizations, ensure the automation of legally significant transactions, and minimize the risk of data falsification. The practical significance lies in the possibility of implementing the proposed approach into existing management systems of non-profit structures, which creates the basis for the formation of digital ecosystems of trusted document management.
The article examines the regulatory challenges associated with smart contracts in the Russian legal framework and explores the potential role of UNCITRAL instruments in addressing them. The main problem lies in the absence of a clear legal qualification of smart contracts in Russian law. Although smart contracts are used in practice and are indirectly reflected in certain provisions of the Civil Code, Russian legislation does not define them as automatically formed or automatically performed contracts. As a result, their regulation is largely shaped by the internal rules of digital platforms. The article argues that a smart contract should not be reduced either to a traditional contract, an electronic form of contract, or merely a method of performance. Rather, it should be treated as a sui generis legal and technological phenomenon. Particular attention is paid to the principles of technological neutrality, non-discrimination of automated transactions, attribution of actions performed by automated systems, and unexpected outcomes. The UNCITRAL Model Law on Automated Contracting may serve as an important reference point for developing a balanced Russian approach that combines statutory principles with platform-based regulation.
Despite the apparent lack of legal regulation regarding the definition of the content and rules of civil circulation of cryptocurrencies, which is the basis for courts to refuse to consider civil cases involving cryptocurrency, binding relationships related to cryptocurrency certainly exist and are developing. The impossibility of judicial protection of this kind of obligations raises the question of their legal nature and on the basis of what factors it is possible to transform these obligations into civil obligations subject to judicial protection. The purpose of the article is to consider the features of cryptocurrency as an object of natural obligations, to identify facts that serve as grounds for refusing to recognize transactions with cryptocurrency and their judicial protection, to establish the possibility of converting transactions with cryptocurrency from natural obligations to civil ones. When conducting the research, the main methods were general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis. Special methods such as comparative law, historical law, and formal law were used as auxiliary methods. As a result of considering cryptocurrencies as natural obligations that are not subject to legal protection, the conclusion is drawn: transactions with cryptocurrencies have a property such as latency, which removes this type of transaction from the jurisdiction of the courts, giving them the property of naturalness. The facts that serve as grounds for the courts to refuse to protect transactions with cryptocurrency are the following: 1) the owners of cryptocurrencies are individuals or legal entities whose personal law is not Russian law; 2) there is no information about the subjects of the transaction and other interested parties; 3) there is no information about the objects of the transaction; 4) there is no information about the transaction itself.
Over the past decade, profound changes of various kinds have simultaneously occurred in the international environment and political systems, political regimes, and their functioning in a significant number of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americasthat is, on all continents. All of these profound changes have had serious and, naturally, diverse multidirectional consequences for the perception of human rights, attitudes towards them, their normative protection, and practice of human rights. Moreover, they have coincided with the revolutionary restructuring of polities at the international, regional, and national levels under the influence of their technological rearmament, digitalization, robotization, and the routinization of the everyday use of artificial intelligence, distributed ledgers, and breakthrough biotechnologies. This presentation and its journal version examine the most debated, controversial. self-contained, multidirectional trends and countertrends in the development of human rights, their protection, defense, and the practice of observing and violating them.
Open access
Digital Transformation in Law
Legal and Policy Issues
Legal, Health, Environmental and COVID-19 Challenges
Svetlana Marković, Radovan Vladisavljević, Marko Marković
Smart contracts are one of the most prevalent and important blockchain-based technologies in the field of financial security, as the automatic execution of predefined rules provides additional efficiency, lowers costs and minimizes the involvement of intermediaries. This research will examine the use of smart contracts for process automation, risk reduction and organizational restructuring in the financial sector. In particular, the interaction between centralized and decentralized financial systems, the technology behind the implementation of blockchain and security issues associated with the use of smart contracts will be considered. At the same time, escrows will be presented as an example of the practical use of smart contracts for financial operations. The results of this analysis will show that smart contracts can be used as a means to increase the reliability of financial operations; however, their widespread use depends on proper regulation, security assessment and integration with the existing financial infrastructure.
Digital assets have become a significant and indispensable part of the modern financial system and have brought innovations in the areas of payments, investments, and financial intermediation. However, their expansion brings numerous regulatory challenges, particularly with regard to preventing money laundering, user identification, the legal treatment of decentralized finance, and privacy protection. Approaches to the regulation of digital assets vary significantly among jurisdictions - while some countries introduce comprehensive legislation, others apply restrictive or fragmented policies. Serbia has positioned itself as one of the first countries in the region to adopt a specific Law on Digital Assets (2020), thereby establishing a regulatory framework for this market. This paper analyses the legal challenges of digital assets, exploring national and international regulatory approaches, including the European Union's MiCA Regulation. It also examines the need to strike a balance between fostering innovation and ensuring the stability of the financial system. The key finding is that continuous international cooperation and a flexible regulatory framework are necessary to enable the sustainable development of digital assets and the technologies that support them.
This paper examines the transformative potential of Distributed Ledger Technology (“DLT”) in bridging the massive infrastructure funding gap in emerging markets. Traditional project finance relies on complex, high-friction syndicated loan structures and equity distributions that often exclude smaller institutional investors and lack secondary market liquidity. The Bank for International Settlements defined tokenisation as the process of generating and recording a digital representation of traditional assets on a programmable platform. By tokenizing infrastructure assets, project sponsors can democratize access to capital and automate revenue distribution via Smart Contracts. However, this transition faces significant legal hurdles. This research provides a comprehensive analysis of the existing regulatory landscape, focusing on the Investments and Securities Act 2025 (“ISA 2025”) and the Companies and Allied Matters Act 2020 (“CAMA 2020”) . It interrogates whether infrastructure tokens should be classified as securities, the enforceability of decentralized collateral registries, and the legal standing of automated waterfall payments in bankruptcy scenarios. The paper concludes by proposing a model regulatory sandbox framework designed to provide legal certainty for developers while maintaining robust investor protections.
Radovan Vladisavljević, Aleksandra Zlatić-Tešić, Svetlana Marković
The aim of the work is to present a model of tax control automation using smart contracts, this is a relatively new application of blockchain technologies. The use of new technologies can greatly improve the operations of modern organizations that have digitized their operations. New technologies not only provide a high degree of automation but also provide a high degree of transparency. This leads to faster business with an increase in the level of trust of all participants in the business venture.
The article is devoted to the philosophical, legal and comparative legal analysis of the transformation of the autonomy of the will in the context of algorithmization of private law. The subject of the study is the transformation of the autonomy of the will as a system-forming principle of private law in the context of algorithmization of contractual relations. The focus is on the relationship between automaticity of fulfillment of obligations (smart contracts) and dispositivity, as well as the functional change in the role of the subject of civil law in the digital environment. In this paper, attention is paid to the problem of the relationship between automaticity of fulfillment of obligations and dispositivity as a system-forming principle of contract law. The author proceeds from the historiographical understanding of the autonomy of the will, which has developed in European and Russian civil law, and considers the smart contract as a technological form of realization of the previously expressed will of the parties. Additionally, the limits of judicial control and the preservation of traditional principles of good faith and proportionality in algorithmic mandatory structures are analyzed. The research methodology is based on a combination of philosophical-legal and comparative-legal approaches. The author applies a formal dogmatic method to analyze the category of autonomy of will and the legal nature of a smart contract in Russian civil law. The scientific novelty of the article lies in substantiating the thesis that the algorithmization of private law, contrary to the doctrinally widespread ideas about the "death of the subject" and the replacement of the autonomy of the will by program code, leads not to the denial of the classical model of the contract, but to the functional transformation of the role of the subject. Based on a comprehensive comparative legal analysis (Russia, the countries of continental Europe, the USA, China), the predominance of an integration regulatory model has been revealed, in which a smart contract adapts to existing legal structures without revising the conceptual core of the law of obligations. A comparative legal analysis of the regulation of smart contracts in Russia, the countries of continental Europe, the USA and China demonstrates the predominance of an integration model in which digital technologies adapt to existing legal structures without revising the conceptual core of the contract. The conclusion is drawn that the subject of private law in the era of algorithms does not lose its autonomy, but becomes the architect of its own digital normativity, while maintaining the status of a bearer of will and legal responsibility.
Smart contracts represent a specific synthesis of technology and law. They are agreements that are automatically executed and, owing to blockchain technology, relatively immutable. Due to their automation and immutability, smart contracts constitute a useful instrument of contemporary digital transactions. At the level of the European Union, smart contracts are comprehensively regulated by Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 on fair access to and use of data. In the first part of the paper, the author analyzes the concept of smart contracts, along with a brief explanation of blockchain technology as their underlying basis. In the second part, the author examines the legislation of the Member States of the European Union concerning smart contracts prior to the adoption of the aforementioned Regulation. The central part of the paper is devoted to an analysis of the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2023/2854 relating to smart contracts, with particular emphasis on the essential requirements for smart contracts used in the performance of data sharing agreements, as well as on the procedure for assessing the compliance of smart contracts with those essential requirements. In the conclusion, the author elaborates the thesis that the new European Union legislation, including that relating to smart contracts, represents a qualitative leap compared to previous solutions, as it provides a detailed regulation of some of the most significant issues concerning the functioning of smart contracts and offers appropriate legal and technical guarantees for their successful application.
Smart contracts have revolutionized finance by enabling decentralized applications without intermediaries, yet their widespread adoption has exposed significant gaps in understanding their practical implications and unresolved challenges. Unlike existing works that primarily focus on theoretical overviews, this paper employs a rigorous empirical methodology to bridge the gap between research and real-world operations. By combining insights from user and developer communities, practical experiments on testnets and mainnets, and a comprehensive analysis of prior studies, this work uncovers underexplored applications, highlights discrepancies between theoretical models and actual behaviors, and identifies emerging security, privacy, and social challenges. The paper first provides structural insights into the surveyed contents and then introduces critical security, privacy, and social considerations. The first category of surveyed contents includes well-documented applications such as automated market makers (AMMs), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and flash loans. Unlike existing works, this study offers unified explanations that integrate fragmented information while presenting experimental findings and practical proposals. The second category covers under-explored applications like NFT vouchers for real-world assets, wrapped NFTs, and reversible transactions. By offering actionable insights and usage guidelines, this study distinguishes itself by addressing the nuanced, practical realities of smart contract applications, equipping researchers, developers, and users with the knowledge needed to navigate the evolving world of smart contracts effectively.
Abstract Blockchain technology indubitably offers opportunities for the trading of carbon credits through the tokenization of Verified Carbon Credits (VCCs) via DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). These organizations aim to facilitate the trading of VCCs, improve market transparency, reduce transaction costs by eliminating intermediaries and facilitate market access for small entities interested in exploiting this opportunity. Thus, the purpose of this paper—in line with the content of the U nidroit Project on the legal nature of verified carbon credits—is to analyse the tokenization of VCCs through DAOs, given the development of new platforms created for this purpose. To carry out this analysis, it is necessary to study the concepts of blockchain technology, digital assets and DAO.
This paper explores the transformative intersection of blockchain technology, decentralized digital systems, and emerging global data protection frameworks. As the digital economy shifts from centralized data monopolies toward decentralized, cryptographically secure ledgers, traditional legal concepts of privacy, ownership, and intermediary liability face unprecedented challenges. By analyzing current legislative paradigms, specifically the European Union's GDPR, India's DPDP Act, and the IT Rules 2021, this analysis evaluates the efficacy of statutory enforcement against the structural realities of Web3. The paper further forecasts the juridical landscape of 2026 and beyond, examining the implications of smart contracts, self-sovereign identities (SSI), and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). Ultimately, it argues for a prophylactic legal synthesis: a regulatory approach that harmonizes mathematical trust and code-driven autonomy with equitable human rights, ensuring robust accountability without stifling technological innovation.
This Article examines the national security risks posed by intelligent non-fungible tokens, or iNFTs, which combine blockchain-based digital assets with adaptive artificial intelligence. It argues that iNFTs amplify concerns surrounding money laundering, terrorist financing, sanctions evasion, cybercrime, and disinformation while creating difficult cross-border problems of jurisdiction, choice of law, and enforcement. The Article concludes that current AML/KYC frameworks are inadequate and calls for updated legislation, international regulatory harmonization, and AI-enabled blockchain analytics.
The article provides a theoretical substantiation of the essence of investment technologies within the system of decentralized finance. Based on a synthesis of existing scientific approaches, the author proposes original definitions for key concepts: "investment technologies", "financial technologies", and "decentralized finance". It is demonstrated that decentralized finance represents an alternative ecosystem built on public blockchains and smart contracts, which ensures the complete elimination of intermediaries. The formulated theoretical propositions establish a foundation for the further development of the organizational and economic framework for managing investment technologies within the DeFi space.
This article examines the legal status of smart contracts across different jurisdictions through a comparative legal methodology, analyzing regulatory approaches in the United States, European Union, Switzerland, Singapore, and Uzbekistan. The research identifies key challenges in integrating self-executing agreements into existing legal frameworks, including issues of contract formation, enforceability, dispute resolution, and data protection compliance. Using doctrinal analysis and comparative law methods, this study evaluates how different legal systems address the fundamental question of whether code-based agreements satisfy traditional contract formation requirements. The findings reveal a spectrum of regulatory responses ranging from explicit statutory recognition to application of existing contract law principles. The article concludes with recommendations for developing comprehensive legal frameworks that balance innovation with consumer protection and legal certainty.
The article discusses the issue of confiscation of property in relation to criminally discovered digital assets (cryptocurrencies, tokens, NFT (Non-fungible token) and other electronic digital rights). Digital assets are a symbol of economic development, security and transparency, investment, and financial democracy. The article analyzes the role of digital assets in the legalization of proceeds from crime. The international The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, of which the Republic of Kazakhstan is a member, are analyzed. One of the urgent legal problems today is the creation of a mechanism for the confiscation of digital assets. The article highlights the importance of creating this mechanism. Examples and cases from practice are analyzed, as well as samples from foreign countries, and the effectiveness of their application in the Republic of Kazakhstan is analyzed. The legal differentiation of the process of preservation and further effective use of digital assets after the mechanism of confiscation is carried out. The effectiveness and legality of storing confiscated digital assets on the Binance Kazakhstan digital asset exchange and the use of cryptocurrencies by law enforcement agencies in crypto exchanges are analyzed. The article explains the importance of secure storage of confiscated digital assets, transparency of information about stored digital assets, and the creation of mechanisms to regulate the emergence of full control over confiscated digital assets in the state. The article defines the significance for the Republic of Kazakhstan of the use of the institution of confiscation (non-conviction based confession) without a court verdict. A legal assessment is given of the conformity of the institution of confiscation of property without conviction with the presumption of innocence and inviolability of property rights.