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Many middle class people tell me to drop my cockney accent as I sound like a right "fly by night." - that tells me a lot.
If people think I'm a "sad pratt" dispite that fact that I'm not quick to judge others, then that speaks volumes about their prejudices.
Contract law is still a thing, but you can't be subejct to contract law, if you didn't enter into a contract as contract law doesn't apply to smart contracts.
It's code. It's a protocol. If you want to tokenise communism crack on, nothing stopping you.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Of course contract law applies to smart contracts. They are still a form of contract, yes?
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
StakerOne FACT
Reality:
If a smart contract takes the character of a legal contract then of course it is subject to contract law, just like any other legal contract.
Just google it - this isn't secret knowledge.
On this we are on the same page. We can't help others if we have no security ourselves. I think you'll agree that beyond that point it's subjective. Some people make real change, for the better, while others I'm dubious about - Bill Gates for example.
I don't claim to be a saint. I think I would have to have my own bunker a solar powered catamaran, before I could start chucking hundreds of thousands into charities. But at least I'm honest!
If I could just add in that many don't understand capitalism is always defined in it's basic form free from personal ideals. For example whether you take profits to the detriment or not doesn't matter in so far as what capitalism actually is. It's detractors normally take advantage of this.
Most people who believe in capitalism want to do things ethically.
This is where people can be incredibly unfair when there is a debate concerning crypto (Not that I'm not casting aspersions at you.)
Many who hold cryptocurrency do so, because they believe that volatility is the price for growth.
When companies get listed on a stock exchange, going public, they are quite a large size when that happens, which is why there is no volatility.
For crypto, it's different, they all start from a low cap therefore it doesn't take much buying and selling to get volatile. There's also a lot of leverage going on an that will never go away, because there's plenty of liquidity pools out there.
The reason why I think people can be unfair, is because when we point out that high volatility is the price for high growth, we're accused of only being in it, for high growth!
There are more and more treasurers of companies and even countries, that believe their portfolios should have some bitcoin as part of their diversifiction. It's an asset class that isn't going away.
By the way, I've already have had those crazy drops twice. I hold through them because I understand the technology and it's importance. And yes, (on paper) it isn't nice losing 7 figures in a month!
The whole thing is only a gamble if you don't understand it, haven't researched etc. I have researched it. I have to keep researching every day.
I do not advise people to buy crypto currencies for that reason. I don't have any problem with anyone holding a diversified portfolio.
I advise people to research the cryptocurrencies, in particular smart blockchains and web3 - after that, everything else comes naturally.
These days, it doesn't make much sense to invest much of that into cryto because there's too many ways to make money in crypto itself.
In December last year, I made more than my salary from one aidrop...because I spent about £50.00 on a certain DeFi product.
What's the point of me speculating all of my spare (but hard earned) cash, when I can use just a little bit of cash (About £30 to £100) to make over tens of thousands this year in crypto airdrops? I might as well leave that that kind of money in crypto!!!
Things don't work the way you guys think it works in the crypto world. Yes there is real proper Robin Hood style free cash to people because they want to tokenise their projects that are stuffed with money and the only way they can do it is to spread it all around as many people as possible to keep it decentralised and away from the wrath of the S.E.C.
I'm not pointing this out to brag or flex, my point is that no one has to sink their savings into the thing, certainly if they haven't researched properly what it is they are speculating on.
No they are not a legal contract whatsoever. In all honesty, I wish they weren't called "Smart contracts" but the name has stuck.
It's just code that is self-inforcing so in a large number of situations (not all) a collection of those "smart contracts" can negate the need to draw up legal contracts.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
StakerOne FACT
If what they do adds up to something that would normally need a legal contract then they constitute a 'smart legal contract' and are subject to contract law. Either they provide contractual obligations (ie are legal contracts) or they don't.
The Law Commission is pretty confident about this.
Smart contracts | Law Commission
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
The whole point of a smart contract is to define (and through the "smart" component, enforce) an agreement between two or more parties. That's a contract as far as the law is concerned. You're trying to eat your cake and keep it.
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But it isn't. There isn't even agreement in plain English.
And besides even there was a legal agreement, the legal agreement would be done in such a way to keep all parties out of court, there is the smart contract and that is it.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
Nooo it's just code, you don't need law for code, that's like politics or something and there's nothing political about code because code is stem and science is pure truth, except when those meddling politicians come along with their dirty politics and ruin everything. Just leave it to the oracles!
Another expertise you’re now claiming despite, I’m guessing, zero experience in the field — contract law. Spent much time litigating disagreements, have you? Like, for example, the interpretation of the warranties provided as precursor to the contract?
Good luck taking a piece of code to court that is distributed across thousands of computers.
Of course you being a lawyer with blockchain expertise would have fought scores of cases against programmers who've deployed smart contracts?
They are designed to keep people out of court. They do their job well because they've existed since 2014 and to date and I don't know of anyone who has been successfully sued over a smart contract
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
The agreement would have to be representable in English, otherwise nobody who isn't a programmer would sign up for it. I'm certainly not prepared to sign up for a "smart contract" of which I cannot read the terms and conditions. Are you? If so, you're a damn fool.
Furthermore, for all it's supposed "smartness", a smart contract cannot possibly account for any and all circumstances which might give rise to a dispute between the parties. We cannot yet create in programming the same range of judgement and future modeling which can be found within a human mind. Certainly not within 20 lines of code! So while it's plausible that smart contracts might reduce the need for human arbitration inside or outside of a court of law, you cannot reasonably claim that smart contracts would completely eliminate such a need.
You don't take the contract to court, you dummy. No more than you would take a regular contract to court. You, as one of the aggrieved parties in the contract, take the other guys to court. In the case of a smart contract, the guys you would be taking to court would be either the other signatories, or whoever drafted the smart contract. These things don't create themselves, now do they?
Your ignorance is not a sufficient basis for assuming the infallibility of smart contracts. Even if it hasn't happened yet, sooner or later a smart contract case will come to court.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Oooooh, we’re nearly there…
mojo pixy
...שלא נמצא בשמאל
I'd love to hear more about how a contract isn't governed by contract law. Please expand on this point.
You seem muddled. Is a smart contract a legal agreement, or not?
It’s perfectly straightforward. If a smart contract doesn’t obey contract law then it is no more legally enforceable than one saying if I don’t pay, Big Rob will come and break my legs. Of course, if I don’t pay, Big Rob may well come round and break my legs. Because people do actually do illegal things. But (a) if Big Rob gets caught then he’s going to jail, regardless of what the contract I signed said. And (b) companies that seek to obey the law will not create a contract with a Big Rob clause. It’s the same for smart contracts. If they don’t obey contract law, they are illegal. The fact that they may automatically discharge despite being illegal is not a point in their favour — it is a reason for legitimate companies to give them a very, very wide berth. Companies have whole legal and compliance departments that exist precisely to stop the company doing things that are illegal.
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I never suggested that anyone take code to court. Is that how desperate you are now, where you have to misrepresent my own argument.
On it's own a smart contract is just a smart contract.
You don't know who deployed it if they haven't revealed themselves.
If you interact with a smart contract that is your other party unless you can work your way back to a website that takes responsibility for the smart contract.
It doesn't need to be legally enforceable because anyone that uses accepts it's the smart contract that does the enforcing.
q_w_e_r_t_y
You see an investment scam and I see divinity
I think you are trying to retrofit the legacy legal system onto something that it just isnt designed to deal with.
Now suppose Joe Bloggs comes to me and says I want to give all my money away, if people send $1, they will get $100 in return. Sounds like a scam, right? But on the blockchain, I can send $1 and know with absolute certainty that I will get $100 back.
Here is the ERC20 smart contract, one of the most widely used in crypto. It defines a function called transfer which allows a token in an ethereum wallet to be moved to another wallet.
This is the relevant code
function transfer(address to, uint256 amount) public virtual override returns (bool){
address owner = _msgSender();
_transfer(owner, to, amount);
return true
}
Its not very difficult to have a basic idea of what that code does.
I can write a smart contract that calls that function so that any time someone deposits exactly 1 UDSC (token that is pegged at $1) into the contract, it automatically sends them back 100 USDC if there is more than 100 USDC in the contract. I now deploy that contract onto the ethereum blockchain. Joe Bloggs deposits $1 squidrillion, and a new goldrush is born.
After a week, when the effects of his Living the Simple Life Yoga Retreat has worn off, Joe tells me that actually, he's changed his mind and he's quite like his money back. The only way Joe Bloggs can get his money back is to continally send the contract exactly 1 USDC, just like the riff-raff.
Joe is furious, hires the best lawyers in the land but there is literally no way whatsoever to get any money out of the contract except by sending it exactly 1 USDC. It doesnt matter what a court says, its just not possible.
Suppose he then argues that he didnt want to give all his money away, only 99% of it, and that he should be able to keep all the money that has been sent to the contract. Again, doesnt matter what a court says, its just not possible. He could certainly sue me for writing the wrong code, but the liability is his to check that the code does what he wants it to do before using it, (and anyway all my money is in Monero, good luck finding that!)
Suppose the court upholds that I wrote the contract wrong, and tells me that I must take the contract down in case other squillionaires are tempted to use it. Again, it doesnt matter what the courts says once the contract is deployed is now there for anyone to use for all eternity.
Suppose the court decides that everyone who interacted with the contract must return $1 to Joe in order to make him whole. Thats all well and good, but how are they going to enforce it, who do they chase after. Unless the wallet has previously gone through KYC, they have no idea who its owner is. Indeed many of the wallets that have interacted with it could be other smart contracts.
It doesnt matter what contract law, courts or judges say, they have no enforcement powers over smart contracts.
Now suppose Joe Bloggs comes to me and says I want to give all my money away, if people send $1, they will get $100 in return. Sounds like a scam, right? But on the blockchain, I can send $1 and know with absolute certainty that I will get $100 back.
Here is the ERC20 smart contract, one of the most widely used in crypto. It defines a function called transfer which allows a token in an ethereum wallet to be moved to another wallet.
This is the relevant code
function transfer(address to, uint256 amount) public virtual override returns (bool){
address owner = _msgSender();
_transfer(owner, to, amount);
return true
}
Its not very difficult to have a basic idea of what that code does.
I can write a smart contract that calls that function so that any time someone deposits exactly 1 UDSC (token that is pegged at $1) into the contract, it automatically sends them back 100 USDC if there is more than 100 USDC in the contract. I now deploy that contract onto the ethereum blockchain. Joe Bloggs deposits $1 squidrillion, and a new goldrush is born.
After a week, when the effects of his Living the Simple Life Yoga Retreat has worn off, Joe tells me that actually, he's changed his mind and he's quite like his money back. The only way Joe Bloggs can get his money back is to continally send the contract exactly 1 USDC, just like the riff-raff.
Joe is furious, hires the best lawyers in the land but there is literally no way whatsoever to get any money out of the contract except by sending it exactly 1 USDC. It doesnt matter what a court says, its just not possible.
Suppose he then argues that he didnt want to give all his money away, only 99% of it, and that he should be able to keep all the money that has been sent to the contract. Again, doesnt matter what a court says, its just not possible. He could certainly sue me for writing the wrong code, but the liability is his to check that the code does what he wants it to do before using it, (and anyway all my money is in Monero, good luck finding that!)
Suppose the court upholds that I wrote the contract wrong, and tells me that I must take the contract down in case other squillionaires are tempted to use it. Again, it doesnt matter what the courts says once the contract is deployed is now there for anyone to use for all eternity.
Suppose the court decides that everyone who interacted with the contract must return $1 to Joe in order to make him whole. Thats all well and good, but how are they going to enforce it, who do they chase after. Unless the wallet has previously gone through KYC, they have no idea who its owner is. Indeed many of the wallets that have interacted with it could be other smart contracts.
It doesnt matter what contract law, courts or judges say, they have no enforcement powers over smart contracts.
Companies will always have various options to hire external entities to make smart contracts and be legally responsible for them.
Companies have compliance and legal teams and I'm sure they can work out the best way to implement smart contracts.
Beyond that out there in the wilds, there are smart contracts that decentralised that there is no one to take to court.
Yiu say you won't use such a smart contract directly, that's your choice.
However you mind find in future that someone you have an agreement with, utilizes those smart contracts and they of course would shoulder the risk and stump up the money if they are in breach of the contract they signed with you.
I don't understand what the problem is.
You keep implying that smart contracts are somehow incompatible with the world in which we exists. If that were true, we wouldn't be seeing the growth we are seeing.
There are more and more lawyers who are are proficient in blockchain technology.
mojo pixy
...שלא נמצא בשמאל
Yeah you're not really answering, StakerOne you're just repeating an earlier non-answer.
Let me put it bluntly: if you enter an agreement that confers rights and/or responsibilities on one or more parties, that's a contract. Now, please explain how a 'smart contract' on a blockchain isn't that.
The only way it wouldn't be legally binding is because nobody knows who produced it or who the originating party was, and seriously? That's not a good thing for anyone drawn into it after it's released. There will be no recourse at all, should things not turn out as you expect - but then that's the point isn't it? Social darwinistic 'objectivist' bootstrap culture where there's no safety net, the strong prey on the weak, the richer you get the richer you get, and fuck you if you don't get it. The callous tyranny of the entitled child.
Let me put it bluntly: if you enter an agreement that confers rights and/or responsibilities on one or more parties, that's a contract. Now, please explain how a 'smart contract' on a blockchain isn't that.
The only way it wouldn't be legally binding is because nobody knows who produced it or who the originating party was, and seriously? That's not a good thing for anyone drawn into it after it's released. There will be no recourse at all, should things not turn out as you expect - but then that's the point isn't it? Social darwinistic 'objectivist' bootstrap culture where there's no safety net, the strong prey on the weak, the richer you get the richer you get, and fuck you if you don't get it. The callous tyranny of the entitled child.
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Sure it is. It's saving people a shit tonne of money and worries.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
As with most of these supposed uses of crypto, it appears to be too early to say how this will pan out. According to this site, most smart contracts on Ethereum right now are there to help users manage their use of Ethereum. It's largely still a plaything of the cryptocrowd.
Ethereum: Going long on ETH? You are duty-bound to read this
We'll see if it spills over into the real world in a significant way, what problems it causes with its prized immutability when it does so, and how courts will react.
Ethereum: Going long on ETH? You are duty-bound to read this
We'll see if it spills over into the real world in a significant way, what problems it causes with its prized immutability when it does so, and how courts will react.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Why the fuck would anyone in their right mind sign up to any kind of agreement drafted by an unknown author?! That's utterly batshit.
You admit the smart contract isn't written in plain English. No reputable company is going to sign up for that shit. What the fuck are they going to tell their insurers if something goes wrong? "Oh, we signed up to an agreement that has no publicly listed author, the terms and conditions of which cannot be read in a human language, and which also automatically enforces these unknown and unreadable terms and conditions". The company concerned might as forget about insurance completely, which at the very least is going to cost them stupid amounts of money. That shit is never going to fly.
The legal system is not "legacy", you dribbling cultist. Try running an actual business with that attitude and you'll come a cropper really painfully.
Which is why such "smart" contracts will never see the light of day in the real world outside of crypto headbanger circles. Real industries that do actual shit in the proper economy are not going to want to sign up to anything which prevents them from taking legal recourse.
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