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Decoding Smart Contracts: Technology, Legitimacy, & Legislative Uniformity, Jared Arcari
Decoding Smart Contracts: Technology, Legitimacy, & Legislative Uniformity, Jared Arcari
Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law
Blockchain technology is increasingly permeating the everyday lives of countless people. Applications of the cutting-edge technology range from secured banking to tracking mortgage titles. A particular blockchain technology, dubbed “smart contracts,” has the potential to revolutionize how individuals and companies securely contract with each other. Smart contracts, however, are not widely employed, mainly because potential users are uncertain of their enforceability as contracts under existing state contract laws. Similar skepticism slowed the acceptance of electronic signatures in the late 1990s, but was resolved ultimately through a model uniform act recognizing electronic signatures’ effectiveness across interstate borders. This Note proposes a …
Coin-Operated Capitalism, Shaanan Cohney, David A. Hoffman, Jeremy Sklaroff, David A. Wishnick
Coin-Operated Capitalism, Shaanan Cohney, David A. Hoffman, Jeremy Sklaroff, David A. Wishnick
All Faculty Scholarship
This Article presents the legal literature’s first detailed analysis of the inner workings of Initial Coin Offerings. We characterize the ICO as an example of financial innovation, placing it in kinship with venture capital contracting, asset securitization, and (obviously) the IPO. We also take the form seriously as an example of technological innovation, where promoters are beginning to effectuate their promises to investors through computer code, rather than traditional contract. To understand the dynamics of this shift, we first collect contracts, “white papers,” and other contract-like documents for the fifty top-grossing ICOs of 2017. We then analyze how such projects’ …