A Formal Specification Smart-Contract Language For Legally Binding Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

Dwivedi, V. & Norta, A. & Wulf, A. J. & B. Leiding & S. Saxena and C. Udokwu "A Formal Specification Smart-Contract Language For Legally Binding Decentralized Autonomous Organizations", IEEE Access, 9, 2021, 76069-76082.

14 Pages Posted: 19 Aug 2021

See all articles by Vimal Kumar Dwivedi

Vimal Kumar Dwivedi

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Alex Norta

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Alexander J. Wulf

SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences

Benjamin Leiding

Technical University Clausthal - Institute for Software and Systems Engineering

Sandeep Saxena

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Chibuzor Udokwo

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Date Written: May 19, 2021

Abstract

Blockchain- and smart-contract technology enhance the effectiveness and automation of business processes. The rising interest in the development of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) shows that blockchain technology has the potential to reform business and society. A DAO is an organization wherein business rules are encoded in smart-contract programs that are executed when specified rules are met. The contractual- and business semantics are sine qua non for drafting a legally-binding smart contract in DAO collaborations. Several smart-contract languages (SCLs) exist, such as SPESC, or Symboleo to specify a legally-binding contract. However, their primary focus is on designing and developing smart contracts with the cooperation of IT- and non-IT users. Therefore, this paper fills a gap in the state of the art by specifying a smart-legal-contract markup language (SLCML) for legal- and business constructs to draft a legally-binding DAO. To achieve the paper objective, we first present a formal SCL ontology to describe the legal- and business semantics of a DAO. Secondly, we translate the SCL ontology into SLCML, for which we present the XML schema definition. We demonstrate and evaluate our SLCML language through the specification of a real life-inspired Sale-of-Goods contract. Finally, the SLCML use-case code is translated into Solidity to demonstrate its feasibility for blockchain platform implementations.

Keywords: Blockchain, smart contract, decentralized autonomous organization, ontology, smart contract language, business process, B2B

JEL Classification: K12

Suggested Citation

Dwivedi, Vimal Kumar and Norta, Alex and Wulf, Alexander J. and Leiding, Benjamin and Saxena, Sandeep and Udokwo, Chibuzor, A Formal Specification Smart-Contract Language For Legally Binding Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (May 19, 2021). Dwivedi, V. & Norta, A. & Wulf, A. J. & B. Leiding & S. Saxena and C. Udokwu "A Formal Specification Smart-Contract Language For Legally Binding Decentralized Autonomous Organizations", IEEE Access, 9, 2021, 76069-76082., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3906478

Vimal Kumar Dwivedi

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Alex Norta

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Alexander J. Wulf (Contact Author)

SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences ( email )

Ernst-Reuter-Platz 10
Berlin, Berlin 10587
Germany
+49 (0) 30 374 374 502 (Phone)
+49 (0) 30 374 374 375 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.srh-hochschule-berlin.de/de/hochschule/hochschulteam/wulf-alexander-j/

Benjamin Leiding

Technical University Clausthal - Institute for Software and Systems Engineering

Clausthal
Germany

Sandeep Saxena

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Chibuzor Udokwo

affiliation not provided to SSRN

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