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? The 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. Primavera 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.
