Oktahedron

OH001: Concorde Effect

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Episode Notes
Oktahedron – Legal Issues in the Blockchain Universe

In this episode, @heckerhut, @dirkjaeckel, and @j32804 discuss legal aspects of blockchains.

None of this can be considered legal advice. As an anonymous friend of mine put it:

"Blockchain is a hot new cool thing for borderline legal shenanigans."

Is it?

Topics Discussed

Some time has passed since The DAO was hacked. We need to mention it again because it raised many legal questions. What has happened since?

We also discuss:

  • Crowdsales
  • Smart contracts gone wrong (not The DAO one)
  • Other podcasts touching on law and regulations (see links below)
  • Making predictions without considering the risks involved
    • Selected Links
    White Hat Hacker & ETC
    • White hat hacker team told off for moving salvaged ETC
    • More about the white hat group
      • Legal & Regulatory Discussions
      • Dominic Williams on tokens and securities law
      • Sian Jones regulatory update on Epicenter Bitcoin
      • ESMA Discussion Paper – Not fun to read, but important in the regulatory space
      • Big ETC-ETH debate
      • Florian Glatz defining a legal framework for DAOs on Epicenter
        • Smart Contracts Gone Wrong
        • GovernMental contract – 1100 ETH jackpot payout stuck
          • Reads on Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs)

          Selected by our guest Florian Glatz:

          • Bitcoin as an unmanned company – "Bitcoin and the Three Laws of Robotics"
          • Florian’s prediction from 2 years ago
          • A Legal Analysis of the DAO Exploit and Possible Investor Rights
          • DAC (Decentralized Autonomous Corporations) revisited by Daniel Larimer
          • DAOs, DACs, DAs and More: An Incomplete Terminology Guide by Vitalik Buterin (2014)
          • Bootstrapping A Decentralized Autonomous Corporation by Vitalik Buterin:
            • Part I
            • Part II
            • Part III
              • Show Notes from a Previous Unpublished (Perhaps Censored?) Recording
              • Coindesk article: "How to sue The DAO Hacker" (before The DAO attack)
              • Coindesk article: "How to sue a DAO" (pre-The DAO attack)
                • General Legal Issues Related to Blockchains
                • "Beyond Bitcoin: Issues in Regulating Blockchain Transactions" – Long but basic, explaining how blockchain differs from traditional systems
                  • Safer Smart Contract Languages

                  We mentioned that Turing-complete languages might not be the safest choice for smart contracts, as they are inherently undecidable, making it impossible to predict their behavior before execution.

                  • Towards safer languages for smart contracts – Jack Pettersson & Robert Edström (DEVCON1)
                  • Using dependent and polymorphic types for safer smart contract development (Master Thesis)
                    • Other Interesting Links
                    • Concept of a-legality explored by Hans Lindahl in philosophy of law: Hans Lindahl
                    • Plantoid – A robotic plant connected to the blockchain:
                      • Plantoid Project
                      • Implementation by Primavera de Filippi
                        • EU Parliament & Blockchain Regulations

                        The EU Parliament has published reports on virtual currencies. They are usually behind the curve—while people discuss DAOs, they are still getting their heads around Bitcoin. Hopefully, they will catch up fast.

                        • EU Parliament report on Virtual Currencies
                        • Attend public hearings at EU institutions on regulations
                          • ...more
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                          OktahedronBy Dirk Jäckel