This article analyses the impact of smart contracts on family law, specifically examining how these digital contracts can simplify and improve the drafting, implementation and enforcement of family agreements. The analysis examines the advantages, examples of application, challenges and limitations of smart contracts in family law, explains their ability to enhance efficiency and transparency in relevant cases, and considers ethical aspects and potential risks. The article notes that most legal systems have not yet adapted to blockchain technology. The legal validity of smart contracts, particularly in the context of personal relationships, is the subject of lively debate in practice. Family law is complex and often requires human judgement, which smart contracts currently lack. Family law varies significantly across different jurisdictions, making it difficult to create a universally recognised marriage contract on the blockchain. Both parties to the marriage contract must understand the functionality of smart contracts, including potential risks such as coding errors. Despite the transparency, storing highly sensitive data on a public blockchain may raise privacy concerns for some couples. Ultimately, smart contracts have the potential to transform family law by offering families a more efficient and secure way to manage legal transactions in today’s world. The transparent nature of blockchain records poses risks to the confidentiality of spouses’ property and financial information. The immutable characteristics of smart contracts hinder their adaptability to changing circumstances, such as the birth of children or fluctuations in income, whilst judicial oversight of their enforcement is largely absent. From a pragmatic point of view, smart contracts can be effectively used in various aspects of regulating property relations within marriage. A marriage contract utilising a smart contract can clearly define the procedure for the distribution of digital assets – in particular cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens or tokenised real estate – in the event of divorce, ensuring the automatic execution of this distribution following the legally recognised event of divorce, thereby eliminating protracted legal disputes over these assets. Furthermore, a smart contract can be integrated with the couple’s joint digital wallet, ensuring the automatic deduction of a set share from each partner’s income and the subsequent automatic payment of joint obligations – such as rent, utility bills, etc. – thereby minimising the risk of conflicts regarding the management of joint finances. Smart contracts currently function most effectively in the field of decentralised finance and digital assets, serving as a complement to traditional legal instruments rather than a complete replacement for them.
Dieser Leitfaden richtet sich an Entscheidungsträger von kleinen und mittelständischen Unternehmen. Er ist praktisch ausgerichtet und bietet einen niedrigschwelligen Einstieg in das Thema Smart Contracts. Ziel ist es, eine fundierte Grundlage zu schaffen, um ohne spezifische Vorkenntnisse die Chancen, Grenzen und Einsatzmöglichkeiten dieser Technologie für das eigene Unternehmen einschätzen zu können.
DLT and several other technological elements such as smart contracts, digital wallets, oracles, and so on in the context of financial markets, are leading to the emergence of very different phenomena which require, first of all, to be understood and then, inevitably as their importance and volume grow, regulated and supervised, to ensure the stability of the market and the protection of its investors. At the international level, the Financial Stability Board is advancing a global regulatory framework grounded in the principle of ‘same activity, same risk, same regulation’, aiming to ensure consistent and comprehensive regulation of crypto-asset activities and stablecoins relative to the risks they present, while also fostering responsible innovation prompted by technological advancements. The European Union is actively addressing regulatory challenges in the crypto space, employing distinct approaches to different categories of cryptoassets, depending on whether DLT technology is used in the context of non-fully decentralized finance, rather than in DeFi itself, which currently lacks effective regulation within the European Union. Greater problems from a regulatory perspective, however, are posed by the phenomenon of DeFi, which entails a more significant disintermediation. For this reason, even at the European level, this is undoubtedly the area that poses the most significant problems for market and investor protection. Keywords: decentralized ledger technology, crypto-assets, regulation, DeFi, investor protection.
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.
"Decentralization" in on-chain finance has become theater: a rhetorical banner that masks the competing forms of centralization actually governing protocol behavior, producing both judicial overreach (invalidated in Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury) and regulatory paralysis (the SEC's withdrawn investigation of Uniswap Labs). Drawing on Oliver Williamson's transactioncost theory of economic governance, this Article proposes a three-layer taxonomy of DeFi as three discrete structural equilibria: Layer 1 (crypto-native, corresponding to Williamson's market), Layer 2 (hybrid, tokenized voting and delegated authority), and Layer 3 (permissionedinstitutional, corresponding to Williamson's hierarchy)-operationalized through a multidimensional coding scheme covering validator concentration, governance entropy, asset whitelisting, user permissioning, dependency profile, and legal-entity exposure. The taxonomy is validated through a triple-event study of OFAC's 2022 sanctions on Tornado Cash, the 2023 district-court affirmance, and the 2025 delisting following the Fifth Circuit's reversal, using layershare time series constructed from DeFiLlama and RWA.xyz data. Activity redistributes across layers predictably under each shock-a pattern that a binary or spectrum framework cannot produce-and the mismatch between regulatory tools and governance forms is not a failure of agency imagination but the predictable cost of asking the wrong question; replacing "is this decentralized?" with "which layer is this?" converts the current enforcement impasse into a tractable matching problem between tool and tier.
This paper presents an analysis of the legal regulation of smart contracts in Switzerland and the United King-dom — two leading countries in the field of digital technologies. The study examines the key approaches to the formation and execution of smart contracts, their place within the law and legislation, as well as their in-fluence on the development of IT technologies. The central issue in regulating smart contract-related relations lies in the ambiguity of their legal nature and the lack of regulatory provisions in legislation, particularly in the Civil Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Special attention is given to legislative initiatives in both coun-tries. The research shows that Switzerland has successfully integrated blockchain technologies into its legal system through the adoption of specialized legal frameworks. In contrast, the United Kingdom emphasizes the adaptation of common law to the challenges of the emerging digital economy. The article compares the two countries’ approaches in the definition and application of smart contracts, their legal status, taxation is-sues and data protection. In Switzerland, this is the Law on Distributed Registries (DLT Act), and in the UK, the recommendations of the Law Commission of England and Wales. The paper also focuses on security is-sues (cyber threats and data protection), potential risks and the cross-border use of smart contracts. A com-parative analysis of both jurisdictions’ approaches is presented, along with their potential for further devel-opment, including participation in global standardization initiatives. In conclusion, the authors underscore the necessity of establishing international legal standards for the effective and secure use of smart contracts.
This chapter provides an analysis of legal mechanisms to addressing fraud and scams involving cryptocurrency, drawing on both practical legal experience and the new comparative economics. Although illicit transactions account for a small portion of total cryptocurrency transaction volumes, individuals incur significant private losses and there are unique enforcement challenges in the Web3 ecosystem. The prevalent legal approach to addressing cryptocurrency-based fraud is though public enforcement mechanisms. This chapter argues that in some circumstances private law and civil litigation mechanisms can offer a more efficient mechanism for addressing cryptocurrency-based fraud with tools to identify perpetrators, tailored legal claims, and secure assets. The chapter concludes by making recommendations to enhance these private law remedies.
The Uniform Law Commission and American Law Institute have recognized the need for commercial law to govern digital transactions and responded with the proposed addition of a new article to the Uniform Commercial Code (the “Code” or “UCC”), Article 12. Article 12 will govern the transfer of property rights in a particular category of digital assets (controllable electronic records), which would include commonly known digital assets, such as bitcoin and non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”). Although the addition of Article 12 should provide more certainty in transactions involving current and emerging technologies, there is a fundamental problem with the article as it is currently drafted, which, left unresolved, will instead invite legal uncertainty and litigation. The problem is the drafters’ choice to cast the “qualifying purchaser” in the role of the dramatis personae of Article 12. Article 12’s “qualifying purchaser” benefits from a generous rule that allows them to take controllable electronic records free from competing claims. The drafters include a person who obtains a controllable electronic record from a thief or hacker as someone who could be a “qualifying purchaser.” However, in order to be a “purchaser” under the current definition in the UCC, a person must take through a transaction that creates an interest in property. Thieves and hackers obtain no property interest when they steal a controllable electronic record, so a person who takes a controllable electronic record from a hacker could not be participating in a transaction that creates an interest in property. Thus, they could not be a “qualifying purchaser,” as the drafters claim. Most of the uncertainty of the result could have been avoided had the drafters chosen a term other than “purchaser” to describe the beneficiary of Article 12’s liberal take-free rule and defined it in a manner that would effectuate the drafters’ statutory aim. However, despite making the drafters aware of this glaring issue, they have failed to remedy the mistake. This is unfortunate and will likely lead to legal uncertainty and, thus, needless litigation after the article’s enactment. Why rely on courts to tweak sections of the Code if ambiguities are recognized and can be eliminated by careful drafting? If inartful statutory drafting is a source of uncertainty that can easily be reduced without offsetting social costs, efforts should be made to do so.
2008 yılında Satoshi Nakamoto adlı bir kişi veya grup tarafından ortaya atılan, merkeziyetsiz ve dijital bir para olan Bitcoinin ilk transferinin yapıldığı yıl olan 2009 yılından günümüze kadar geçen sürede, Bitcoinin açık kaynak kodlarından esinlenen binlerce kripto para çeşidi yaratılmış, bu da işlem hacmi çok yüksek bir piyasanın oluşmasına sebep olmuştur. Halihazırda gelinen noktada, kripto paraların, büyük bir işlem hacmi ile yaygın bir şekilde kullanılmakta olduğu artık tartışma götürmez bir gerçek olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Kripto paralar ile yapılan işlemlerden elde edilen gelirlerin vergilendirilmesi, kripto paraların dayandığı karmaşık teknoloji ve kripto paraların hukuki nitelendirilmesinin zorluğu nedeni ile gerek karşılaştırmalı hukukta gerekse Türk Hukukunda henüz belirli temellere oturtulabilmiş değildir. Bu çerçevede bu çalışmanın amacı Türk Hukukunda kripto paraların nasıl vergilendirilebileceğine ilişkin önerilerde bulunmaktır. Bu bağlamda, bu çalışmada öncelikle karşı karşıya kalınan olgunun anlaşılması için kripto paranın ne olduğu ve blokzincir teknolojisi incelenmiş ve akabinde, karşılaştırmalı hukuk da dikkate alınarak kripto paraların hukuki nitelendirme problemi incelenmiştir. Türk Hukukunda, kripto paraların hukuki niteliğinin dijital gayri maddi iktisadi kıymet olduğu sonucuna ulaşıldıktan sonra ise gelir üzerinden alınan vergiler, servet üzerinden alınan vergiler ve harcamalar üzerinden alınan vergiler açısından kripto paraların nasıl vergilendirilebileceği incelenmiştir. Bu inceleme yapılırken, AB müktesebatı, OECD ülke uygulamaları ve ABD, Birleşik Krallık, Almanya ve Fransa’daki vergi uygulamaları incelenmiştir.
The past year has witnessed significant growth in the size, and mainstream profile, of financial markets built on distributed ledger technology (“DLT”), in particular “blockchain”. In February 2021, the market capitalisation of the cryptoasset Bitcoin, which is built on the first operational blockchain, topped USD 1 trillion. So-called decentralised finance (“DeFi”), built mostly on the Ethereum blockchain, grew from less than USD 1 billion to over USD 80 billion in May 2021. Even if one adopts a sceptical posture towards these developments, “crypto” markets cannot be ignored by scholars or practitioners of financial and monetary law.
Aim . To review the legal neologisms of corporate documents, in particular, smart contracts, recorded in fiction and industry literature, in order to compare the ways of word formation of neologisms from articles of the Civil Code (Code Civil) of the French and court decisions. Methodology . In the course of the study, a continuous sampling of legal neologisms from authentic French texts published between 2008 and 2019 was carried out, on the basis of which the most typical legal neologisms were identified. To determine the extent of their distribution in jurisprudence, corpus analysis was used (French-language corpus and English-language Google Ngram Viewer corpus for 2019). In order to determine the methods of word formation and compare these neologisms with the terms recorded in the dictionary, semantic analysis was used to identify the meanings of neologism terms, as well as descriptive and comparative general linguistic methods. Results . As a result of the conducted research, trends have been established and the main ways of word formation of legal neologisms associated with the use of smart contracts of the modern French special language in the period 2008–2019 have been identified. Research implications . The results of the study can be used for further application in the field of modern contract law, contracts based on blockchain and agreements in the electronic form, analysis and prediction.
Non-Fungible Tokens (Gayri-Misli Jetonlar) Mart 2021’den beri yoğun bir şekilde tartışılmaktadır. Bu tartışmalar ilk etapta NFT’lerin eser olup olmadığı, başkalarına ait eserlerin NFT’ye dönüştürülmesinin fikri hak ihlali olup olmadığı veya NFT alım satımlarında elde edilen haklar noktasında toplanmıştı. Benzer bir şekilde NFT’lerin fikri haklar yönetiminde etkili bir araç olup olamayacağı da gündemi epey meşgul etmişti. Ancak NFT ekosisteminin vazgeçilmez bir unsuru olan NFT platformları ve onların fikri hak ihlallerinden doğan sorumluluğu da ele alınması gereken konulardan biridir...
Blokzincir teknolojisi ve blokzincir üzerinden kurulan akıllı sözleşmeler, aracıları ortadan kaldırarak şeffaf, güvenilir, hızlı ve daha düşük masraflı şekilde işlem yapılmasını sağladığından milletlerarası ticaretin farklı birçok sektöründe sıkça kullanılmaya başlanmıştır. Milletlerarası ticaret açısından daha çok kimlik tespitini kolaylaştıran özel izinli blokzincir platformları tercih edilse de kullanıcıların anonim işlem yapabildikleri ve kimlik tespitlerinin neredeyse mümkün olmayabileceği açık izinsiz blokzincirlerde de milletlerarası nitelikli ticari veya ticari olmayan sözleşme kurulması mümkündür. Dolayısıyla, olası bir uyuşmazlıkta blokzincir üzerinden kurulan milletlerarası nitelikli akıllı sözleşmelere uygulanacak hukukun tespiti, özellikle açık izinsiz blokzincir platformları üzerinden kurulan akıllı sözleşmeler bakımından oldukça önem arz etmektedir. Bu tezde, 5718 sayılı Milletlerarası Özel Hukuk ve Usul Hukuku Hakkında Kanun'da düzenlenen bağlama noktalarının açık izinsiz blokzincir platformlarında kurulan akıllı sözleşmelere uygulanıp uygulanamayacağı sorusuna cevap aranmıştır. Konu ele alınırken özellikle milletlerarası ticari sözleşmeler bakımından değerlendirme yapılmış; kanunda özel olarak düzenlenen sözleşmelere ilişkin bağlama noktaları ise farklılaştıkları noktalarda ele alınmıştır. Bunu yaparken, karşılaştırmalı hukuktan da faydalanarak çözüm ve önermelerde bulunulmuştur. Anahtar kelimeler: Blokzincir, akıllı sözleşmeler, milletlerarası özel hukuk, kanunlar ihtilafı kuralları, bağlama noktası, uygulanacak hukuk
Blockchains and smart contracts are novel concepts that provide unique challenges to legal systems. This research outlines the extent to which these new and innovative technologies create potentially unhinging effects for the laws of contract in Europe. It does so by taking three steps. First of all, in light of the transboundary nature of the technology, this research looks at French law, German law, English law, and Dutch law to analyse the impact on the different systems of contract law. Whilste doing so it looks at formation of contracts, interpretation of contracts, and vitiation of contracts. Secondly, it analyses the impact of the technology on the European rules on unfair terms in consumer contracts. This research argues that the existing rules on unfair terms in consumer contracts should be applied to smart legal agreements in business-to-consumer relations. Lastly it analyses the existing European private international rules on the basis of which jurisdiction and applicable law is determined. In this respect the research concludes that the vast majority of these European rules are ‘smart contract’-proof.