THE LAW OF BLOCKCHAIN

【Author】 Dimitropoulos, Georgios

【Source】WASHINGTON LAW REVIEW

【Abstract】Blockchain technology is a new general-purpose technology that poses significant challenges to the existing state of law, economy, and society. Blockchain has one feature that makes it even more distinctive than other disruptive technologies: it is, by nature and design, global and transnational. Moreover, blockchain operates based on its own rules and principles that have a law-like quality. What may be called the lex cryptographia of blockchain has been designed based on a rational choice vision of human behavior. Blockchain adopts a framing derived from neoclassical economics, and instantiates it in a new machinery that implements rational choice paradigms using blockchain in a semi-automatic way, across all spheres of life, and without regard to borders. Accordingly, a global law and cryptoeconomics movement is now emerging owing to the spread of blockchain. This Article suggests that such a rational choice paradigm is an insufficient foundation for the future development of blockchain. It seeks to develop a new understanding of blockchain and its regulation through code according to the emerging la and political economy framework. Blockchain is much more than a machine that enables the automation of transactions according to a rational choice framework. Blockchain should instead be understood as a technological infrastructure. Acknowledging the infrastructural dimension of blockchain technology may help identify a new role for the law in its interaction with blockchain, as well as for government in its interaction with the new technology. More precisely, identifying blockchain as an infrastructural commons helps us recognize that la and regulation should not be relegated to the role of merely facilitating the operation of the invisible hand of the market by and within blockchain, but should rather acquire more active roles, such as safeguarding access on non-discriminatory terms to users, on a model with net neutrality and other public utility safeguards. The Article closes by proposing a la and political economy frame work for blockchain that is based on principles of publicness, trust, and interoperability.

【Keywords】cryptoasset; Bitcoin; blockchain; Ethereum; infrastructure; law and cryptoeconomics; law and political economy

【标题】区块链法则

【摘要】区块链技术是一种新的通用技术，对现有的法律、经济和社会状况构成重大挑战。区块链有一个特点，使它比其他颠覆性技术更具特色：从本质和设计上讲，它是全球性和跨国性的。此外，区块链根据自己的规则和原则运作，具有法律性质。所谓的区块链密码学是基于人类行为的理性选择愿景而设计的。区块链采用源自新古典经济学的框架，并将其实例化为一种新的机制，该机制以半自动的方式使用区块链实现理性选择范式，跨越生活的所有领域，不考虑国界。因此，由于区块链的普及，全球法律和加密经济学运动正在兴起。本文认为，这样的理性选择范式对于区块链的未来发展来说是一个不充分的基础。它旨在根据新兴的法律和政治经济框架通过代码对区块链及其监管建立新的理解。区块链不仅仅是一台能够根据理性选择框架实现交易自动化的机器。相反，区块链应该被理解为一种技术基础设施。承认区块链技术的基础设施维度可能有助于确定法律在与区块链互动中的新角色，以及政府在与新技术互动中的新角色。更准确地说，将区块链识别为基础设施公共资源有助于我们认识到，法律和监管不应该被贬低为仅仅通过区块链和在区块链内部促进市场无形手的运作，而​​应该获得更积极的角色，例如以非歧视性条款、具有网络中立性的模型和其他公用事业保障措施来保护用户的访问。文章最后提出了基于公开、信任和互操作性原则的区块链政治经济学框架。

【关键词】加密资产；比特币；区块链；以太坊；基础设施;法律和密码经济学；法律和政治经济学

【发表时间】2020

【收录时间】2022-07-17

【文献类型】Article

【论文大主题】区块链政策法律

【论文小主题】区块链法律

【数据来源】wos

【影响因子】0.890

【翻译者】丁子仪