The law of cross-border insolvency is about where a company is. It has never had to ask legally what is being administered where an estate consists of cryptographic keys rather than factories or what happens when the controlling minds of a debtor are as mobile as the assets they control. In this paper, I argue that the recent cross-border insolvency reform in India, advanced by section 240C of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Amendment) Act, 2026 (an enabling provision, whose substantive rules remain undrafted), will fail a meaningful share of the insolvencies it is meant to resolve, unless those rules are built with digital assets affirmatively in mind.The argument proceeds in three movements. First, it traces the doctrine of "centre of main interests" through its foundational European and American case law, showing a registered-office presumption that holds up well against debtors who are not trying to defeat it, and considerably less well against those who are. Second, it compares how courts in New Zealand, the United States, and Japan have answered materially the same question, whether a depositor's cryptocurrency is trust property, contractually transferred estate property, or no property at all, and reached three different answers in insolvencies with nearly identical facts. Third, it reads recent failures, including the Indian exchange WazirX's restructuring before a foreign court with no domestic mechanism for India to participate, as variations on one structural pattern that neither doctrine was built to handle.The paper conclude by proposing some concrete provisions which we would suggest that the Central Government consider as it moves forward with the process of notifying the remaining rules under section 240C – specifically, these include a legislated default regime relating to customer deposits, a COMI presumption in relation to debtors who have no other registered office, and a mechanism which enables India to be heard if a foreign restructuring results in large numbers of Indian citizens being affected.
The disclosure duty of arbitrators does not carry a big stick: the consequence attached to its breach is near to none. The duty is carried out through a black-box judgment call; no reasoning for how the arbitrators weed out what not to disclose is made available to the parties. There may be circumstances falling under a grey area but have ended up undisclosed due to, for instance, confidentiality obligations. Exhaustive disclosure and minimum revelation of sensitive information would serve the greatest benefit of all stakeholders. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) – a class of cryptographic protocols – may make this possible.
This article examines the structural tension between territorially organised sanctions regimes and decentralised crypto and tokenised assets. It argues that the principal challenge lies not in the formal applicability of sanctions, but in an enforcement gap: traditional coercive models are designed around identifiable persons and legally ownable property, while distributed ledger systems operate beyond territorial seizure and technical shutdown. The study advances lex digitalis rei sitae as a functional connecting factor linking proprietary and sanctions-related effects to the jurisdiction exercising effective regulatory control over access and liquidity. It further demonstrates that sanctions enforcement increasingly relies on address-based designations, compliance obligations imposed on regulated infrastructure, and programmable compliance embedded in smart contracts and oracle systems. The article concludes that effective digital sanctions require modernised conflict-of-laws rules, explicit recognition of digital identifiers as sanctionable control points, and compliance mechanisms consistent with rule-of-law safeguards.
Smart contracts are programs that automatically enforce some kind of agreement between parties, without the need of a trusted third party. Since they frequently deal with large sums of money (in the form of crypto assets) it is critical that smart contracts attain precisely to their specification and do not have any unexpected behaviour. In this thesis, I will present two lines of research, one related to developing smart contract languages for the UTXO blockchain model, and the other related to the formalization of MEV attacks.
This Article examines whether tortious remedies for interference with non-fungible tokens are available under the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China and the common law of Singapore. The analysis proceeds from a three-layer separation of the underlying copyrighted work, the cryptographic token, and the impugned conduct. Under the Chinese Civil Code, Articles 114-115 define property rights (物权) by reference to direct control and exclusion over specific things (物), while Article 127 delegates the protection of network virtual property (网络虚拟财产) to unspecified future legislation. Under Singaporean law, the High Court in CLM v CLN accepted that cryptocurrencies satisfy the Ainsworth criteria for proprietary status, but no court has extended the tort of conversion to digital tokens. Both systems have recognized digital assets as property without resolving whether existing tortious remedies attach. The analysis maps the functional requirements of Chinese property-interference liability and Singaporean conversion onto private-key-controlled tokens, sets out a five-step operational test for routing claims, and identifies the doctrinal obstacles in each system.
1 Cryptocurrencies in Insolvency Proceedings Abstract The thesis explores how crypto-assets are situated within Czech insolvency law and examines how their technological properties interact with established institutions of bankruptcy proceedings. It starts from a practical observation: distributed-ledger-based assets appear in debtors' estates with growing frequency and in diverse roles-as means of exchange, as investment items, as collateral, or as parts of operational processes. This development raises new questions concerning legal characterisation, discovery and tracing, procedural securing, safe administration, and the choice of realisation methods for the benefit of creditors. The aim is to map these questions systematically, provide a clear vocabulary, and outline a working framework that enables decision-makers to act predictably while respecting efficiency, transparency, and equal treatment of creditors. The opening chapter recalls the foundational principles of Czech insolvency law and the roles of the main actors, with particular attention to the trustee's duties and the supervisory function of creditors' bodies. A concise technical primer then explains how crypto-assets function: the role of private keys and addresses, the nature of on-chain transactions, distinctions between custodial and...
This essay examines the challenges that smart contracts pose for contractual interpretation. While smart contracts are often viewed as unambiguous because they operate through deterministic computer code, disputes may nevertheless arise where the outcome produced by the code diverges from the parties’ understanding of their agreement. The essay argues that these disputes are not adequately addressed by treating code as a definitive expression of contractual intention or by adopting the ‘reasonable coder’ standard proposed by the United Kingdom (‘UK’) Law Commission. The reasonable coder standard is theoretically incoherent because it lacks alignment, generality, and reviewability and therefore cannot perform the descriptive and normative functions served by the reasonable person standard. Thus, this standard should be discarded entirely. Interpretation should continue to be governed by the reasonable person standard, while relaxing the evidentiary constraints imposed by the parol evidence rule. By permitting greater reliance on contextual materials, including pre-contractual negotiations and subsequent conduct, courts can more accurately identify the bargain the parties intended to conclude without having to invoke a conceptually unstable standard.
The legal nature of tokens, cryptographic assets recorded on distributed ledgers and capable of performing multiple economic functions simultaneously or successively, remains one of the most contested and consequential unresolved questions in contemporary financial law. The dominant regulatory response, principally the application of securities law analysis through the investment contract test established in SEC v W J Howey Co , has generated a body of case law characterised by inconsistent outcomes, pervasive uncertainty, and perverse incentives to structure token offerings so as to fall outside the regulatory perimeter. The property law, monetary law, and contractual rights frameworks each capture an important dimension of the problem, but none is adequate, standing alone, to provide a comprehensive and coherent account of the legal nature of tokens across the full range of contexts in which that question arises. This article advances the thesis that the persistent attempt to assign a fixed and singular legal nature to tokens is both theoretically unsatisfactory and practically counterproductive. It is theoretically unsatisfactory because it seeks a degree of ontological stability in an asset class whose defining characteristic is functional versatility; it is practically counterproductive because it produces regulatory arbitrage, legal uncertainty, and market fragmentation. The appropriate response, it is submitted, is a dynamic functional typology: a framework that determines the legal nature of a token by reference to the economic function it performs at any given moment in its lifecycle, payment, investment, access, governance, or representational, and that assigns legal consequences in property, contract, insolvency, and regulation accordingly. Drawing on doctrinal analysis, comparative law, and normative legal theory, the article establishes five economic functions as the organising categories of the framework, proposes four criteria for the identification of the operative function in any given case — the reasonable expectations of the acquirer, the observable economic characteristics of the token, the degree of decentralisation of the network, and the stage of the token's lifecycle — and demonstrates the framework's application to the principal categories of token and to the hardest contested cases, including non-fungible tokens, algorithmic stablecoins, decentralised autonomous organisations, hybrid tokens, and decentralised finance protocols. The comparative analysis examines the regulatory frameworks of the European Union (MiCA), the United States (the Howey test and the proposed FIT21 Act), the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Singapore, and Japan, demonstrating that the functional approach is not merely a theoretical construct but the direction in which the most sophisticated legislative initiatives are converging. The article culminates in the articulation of a five-stage Dynamic Classification Framework, comprising preliminary identification, function determination, consequence assignment, lifecycle monitoring, and reclassification, supported by a Dynamic Classification Matrix that maps the legal consequences of each operative function across property, insolvency, and regulatory dimensions. Two regulatory safe harbours are proposed: a transitional safe harbour for issuance-stage tokens and a decentralisation safe harbour for tokens that have achieved sufficient network decentralisation. The article further proposes a token register as the international harmonisation instrument through which the framework's outputs are made publicly accessible across jurisdictions. The framework is designed to be jurisdiction-neutral and compatible with the principal existing legislative architectures, including MiCA, MiFID II, the UNIDROIT Principles on Digital Assets and Private Law, and the UK Law Commission's recommended data object category. Note: A slightly shorter Spanish version is currently under review for the edited volume "Los bienes digitales", led by the PRIVATECH Observatory, Universidad Externado de Colombia.
Smart contracts, a revolutionary technology that offers a digital alternative to conventional contracts, are popular. Smart contracts also known as automated digital contracts are becoming common in various countries due to their efficiency and openness. Various national and global forums have agreed that smart contracts might alter contract enforcement and boost economic development in India. Given this, it’s crucial to understand the Indian Contract Act, (ICA) 1872 stance on smart contracts. ICA requires testing smart contracts for contractual validity before entering the uncharted seas of autonomous and anonymous digital contracting. This experiment raises many issues, especially given the law’s strict procedural structure. This article refutes the claim that smart contracts should be regulated by self-regulation. Rather author prefers a broad interpretation of substantive contractual law to harmonize smart contracts under the ICA, following common law’s flexibility. It is shown that smart contracts are built on the same principles as common law contracts and deepen our research in the framework of Indian law and precedent. Similar approaches from other countries support this perspective. Although many legislations require change, it is believed that a smart contract law is not needed. The paper concludes by proposing solutions to the potential obstacles that may arise due to present approach.
NFTs are intrinsically dependent on blockchain technologies. Their main function is to represent underlying tangible or intangible assets and their value. NFTs have also been designed and developed to create new tradable items and to generate a new market. Trading NFTs is therefore one of the major objectives within this new market, mainly in marketplaces connected to the relevant blockchains. On blockchains, the usual tools to perform transactions are the so-called smart contracts. NFTs are programmed using smart contracts, and transactions on NFTs are generally performed through smart contracts. This electronic process confirms the authenticity of the NFT, timestamps the transaction, and keeps track of the NFT’s successive owners. NFTs’ eco-environment is therefore the world of digital technologies, first and foremost blockchain technologies (including their cryptocurrencies) and smart contracts. This chapter will provide a legal analysis of blockchain technologies, smart contracts and NFTs and how these different technologies relate to each other from a technical and a legal perspective. It will show how the growing importance of virtual environments and marketplaces makes it crucial to address the legal issues raised by transactions on NFTs. Indeed, while there can be many interesting economic opportunities and legal innovations around NFTs, there is still confusion about how the law should frame this new business. There are also certainly risks lying ahead.
Abstract This article examines the integration of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) into the existing legal framework of the United Kingdom, proposing a novel legal entity model termed the Decentralized Autonomous Organization Limited Liability Partnership (DAOLLP). It explores the distinctive characteristics of DAOs, including their decentralized governance, reliance on smart contracts operating on blockchain and the challenges they face under current UK law and underscores the necessity for legal adaptations that accommodate these innovative structures. The suggested model seeks to provide legal personhood, limited liability protection and a framework for compliance with existing laws and regulations while maintaining the core principles of decentralization and transparency. By comparative analysis of legislative approaches towards DAOs in jurisdictions such as Wyoming, Vermont and Malta, this article promotes a proactive regulatory framework for DAOs that fosters innovation and positions the UK as a leader in blockchain governance.
Tokens are a specific category of digital assets and their diversity, value and significance for the economy continuously grows. Considering their legal nature, tokens are digital representations of a certain right or value incorporated in a form of dataset on the distributed ledgers (DLT). The subtype of tokens often called payment tokens are in the scope of the analysis - these tokens have their intrinsic fluctuating value and can be used for bartering (such as bitcoin). Even though they are widely used in commerce, their civil law status is unclear. In the absence of rules regulating their status, it is necessary to analyse them in the context of general civil law rules to determine whether they could be an object of a subjective rights. Specifically, in this context, it is analysed whether the payment tokens belonging to a deceased person can be a part of the estate and, consequently, whether the heirs (as well as other persons) could obtain and exercise any rights over these assets.
The paper explores the transformation of legal concepts in the era of smart contracts, with a focus on rethinking responsibility and justice within a hybrid legal ontology. The purpose of the article is to develop the conceptual foundations of a hybrid legal ontology to analyze the transformation of responsibility and justice in the context of smart contracts, aiming to comprehend qualitatively new forms of legal reality that emerge at the intersection of human and algorithmic principles. The study adopts an interdisciplinary approach, integrating philosophical-legal analysis with elements of systems theory, critical algorithm theory, and post-phenomenological research on technology. The methodological framework is based on concepts of legal pluralism, agency theory, and approaches from analytical philosophy of law to the challenges of responsibility. It is argued that smart contracts establish a hybrid legal ontology in which traditional categories of individual responsibility are replaced by distributed forms of agency. The study identifies a fundamental contradiction between the algorithmic logic of procedural justice and human needs for substantive justice. It is established that restorative justice is incompatible with the deterministic execution of smart contracts. The conceptualization of legal pluralism in blockchain ecosystems is further advanced through the coexistence of diverse normative orders. The research findings contribute to the philosophical-legal theory of the digital age by conceptualizing hybrid ontology as a new form of legal existence, thereby enriching the understanding of agency, responsibility, and justice in the context of human- machine interaction. The results provide a theoretical basis for developing new regulatory mechanisms that account for the distributed nature of responsibility in blockchain systems, establishing ethical principles for designing fair algorithmic systems, and creating hybrid justice institutions. A conceptual vision of hybrid legal ontology is proposed as a theoretical framework for analyzing qualitatively new legal phenomena. The concept of distributed agency is substantiated to describe collective responsibility in decentralized systems. An approach to understanding algorithmic justice through the limitations of formal systems is suggested. The study highlights the need for developing specific mechanisms to operationalize hybrid legal ontology in regulatory practice, creating new institutional forms to implement distributed responsibility, and exploring possibilities for integrating restorative justice into algorithmic systems.
To explore the legal and philosophical implications of smart contracts, with a focus on their enforceability and the political significance of the “code as law” paradigm. This study adopts a narrative review approach using a descriptive analytical method to examine the intersection of law, technology, and political theory. Sources were selected from academic databases published between 2020 and 2024, encompassing legal scholarship, computer science literature, and political philosophy. Thematic analysis was used to synthesize key ideas related to legal enforceability, algorithmic governance, and the transformation of legal subjectivity in coded systems. The review highlights significant tensions between traditional legal norms and the deterministic nature of smart contracts. While smart contracts offer advantages in terms of automation and efficiency, they also lack the capacity to address ambiguity, context, and moral judgment. These contracts challenge core principles of legal theory, including consent, due process, and equitable remedies. Jurisdictions differ in their responses, ranging from proactive legal recognition to cautious regulatory experimentation. Hybrid models of enforcement and reliance on oracles demonstrate emerging attempts to bridge the gap between code and law. Smart contracts represent a disruptive force in the legal domain, necessitating critical reflection on the philosophical and institutional foundations of modern legal systems. Their adoption must be guided by a commitment to justice, democratic governance, and interdisciplinary oversight to ensure that legal innovation aligns with human values and ethical responsibility.
The advent of distributed-ledger technologies (DLTs), along with the tokenised economy grown from this technical breakthrough, raise some fundamental questions for the law. To a certain extent, DLTs seem to challenge some traditionally core components of state sovereignty, thus disrupting our century-old legal paradigms. However, on a deeper level the law seems capable of incorporating the blockchain revolution without the need to be fundamentally altered.
Despite extensive comparative research on the relationship between government and courts, the independence and administration of local judiciaries remain understudied. Is a decentralized system—where local governments appoint judges and finance court budgets—more conducive to court autonomy than a centralized system that allows higher-level governments to control local judiciaries? We examine a reform in China that gradually recentralizes control over local courts. Using a difference-in-differences design with a unique dataset of lawsuits from listed firms (2012–2018), we find that recentralization diminishes local officials’ ability to interfere with court decision-making and reduces advantages for local litigants. These results suggest that recentralization can help insulate courts from government influence and enhance judicial independence under certain conditions.