What Is Wrong in the Debate About Smart Contracts

Abstract

In recent years, the debate about smart contracts, the blockchain, and their interaction with the law has been constantly intensifying, resulting in a vast multiplicity of contributions that try to deal with these new technologies, the role they are likely to assume in the society, and their impact on the legal framework. In our investigation, we first address the main shortcomings, and conceptual errors in the traditional approach to the legal analysis of smart contracts; then, we ultimately offer a critical perspective of how the debate should develop in the future to properly address these technologic challenges.

Keywords: Smart Contract, Blockchain, Law and Technology, Regulation, Contract Law, Private Law