Crypto-lawWHAT IS IT AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?

- or -

Money isn’t everything

Gavin WoodETHEREUM

News flash!

Bank of England says of Bitcoin technology:

“minimises the degree of trust participants need to place in any third party”

News flash!

The Bank of England, perhaps...

...third parties like?

In the beginning...

Crypto-currency

e.g. Bitcoin, Litecoin, &c.

Then...

App-coins

Namecoin, Reddcoin, &c.

Then...

Crypto-finance

“Bitcoin 2.0”

The State of the Game

Language

StructuredBoolean

Rules

Triv

ial

Am

men

dabl

eG

ener

al

Numeric Discrete

(Less Relevant) (More Relevant)

CRYPTO-CURRENCY

APP-COINS

CRYPTO-FINANCE

Where is this going?

Rules are increasing in ultimate complexity

Language is increasing in relevance to reality

HOLD THAT THOUGHT

Life in the (Capitalist) World

Less certainty=

Greater cost

ultimately to society

Rule of Law

Laws to increase fundamental certainty

Transactional law for “opt-in certainty” over arrangements between parties

Extensible and useful

Not all Roses

Consistency not always present

RE-INTERPRETATIONAPPEALS

CONTRADICTORY PRECEDENTS

Not all Roses

...nor objectivity...

DISPARITY IN COUNCIL FEES:NON-NEGLIGIBLE FACTOR IN TRIAL OUTCOME?

Not all Roses

...nor transparency...

HUGE TIME REQUIRED FOR EXPERT TO UNDERSTAND FULL RAMIFICATIONS OF EVEN A SINGLE CONTRACT

Not all Roses

...and efficiency...

ANNUAL COST TO U.S. OF CIVIL LAWSUITS:$233 billion

What we would like...

Unambiguous contract specificationDeterministic contract evaluation & execution

Fundamentally

No natural languageNo human judgement

A generic tool for legal arrangements,much as we have tools for payment.

SOUND FAMILIAR?

(Unwittingly?) Working towards

Rule-specification and enforcement mechanism:

Rules arbitrarily complex.

Language relevant to real world.

The anatomy of the trial

Fact-finding

Contractual evaluation of facts

Execution of determinations

Fact-finding

Natural digital assets/services/informationASSIMILATION & CRYPTO-PROOFS

Authorities (police, organisations)CRYPTO-SIGNING & ORACLES

Witness-plurality, crowd-sourcingHOLISTIC REPUTATION, WoT, SCHELLING MECHANISMS

Evaluation

Logically specifiable decisionsPROGRAMMING

Non-logically specifiable decisionsJUDGE-as-a-SERVICE, JURY-as-a-SERVICE, CROWD-JUDGEMENT

Execution

Natural digital assets/services/informationASSIMILATION & CRYPTO-PROOFS

Physical effectsBAILIFF-as-a-SERVICE & CRYPTO-PROOFS

Nothing new, really

Last 75 yearsInformation processing on computers rather

than done by humans

Last 15 years:Decentralisation, trust-free(dom) rather than

authorities & trust-requirements

SO WHAT?

What will change?

Assets & services

Taxes & collection

Regulation

Trading, esp. between individuals

Representation

The Final Frontier

Not physics, but...

Chin up

Logical threats only, please.

Not there yet

Unanswered issuesPrivacy

Consensus-scalabilityUser-interfacing

Human comprehensibilityFormalisation of terminology

But it’s on its way

...and you better be ready.

To paraphrase Feynman:

Efficiency cannot be cheated.

Crypto-lawGavin Wood

Questions?