Law & Regulation
Myths of permission-less
In the world of Bitcoin there are many false narratives and myths. This started with the myth of decentralisation. In
Burning and why it matters that it is stopped
First, we need to note that Bitcoin is an economic system and in economics, incentives and intent matter. The loss
Hearsay in the Blockchain world
In law, when presenting evidence to a court, there exists a rule on the exclusion of hearsay as evidence.
OpSec and the Bitcoin business
There are a number of specialist topics in organisational OPSEC and concepts that need to be defined before going into
Non-Repudiation — Does this exist?
There is a definitional distinction between the legal use of the term “non-repudiation” and the common use that has taken
Effective Enforcement in the Vastly Distributed Wild Wild Web
Some time ago Hilary E Pearson (1996) noted that, “in many cases, liability will depend upon how a court faced
Phases of the Bitcoin system
The Bitcoin system may be broken down into the following “phases”: Mining; Holding Bitcoin; and Transferring Bitcoin. Each of these
Rights as property
In its simplest form, a bitcoin transaction involves the creation of an entry in a ledger. The value on the
Monetary transfer and transmission rules
The exchange of bitcoin for other currencies clearly comes under existing AML[1] regulations, and where an exchange[2] has been used
Symmetric Fair Exchange Protocol
Background In a fair exchange protocol two parties either both honour an exchange (such as a contract), or neither of
The tax implications of bitcoin as money
As Bitcoin does not need to be held or processed by a financial institution[1], many people have concluded that they
Creating a Smart Contract Registry
This post is the first in a series to describe a number of important methods that are needed in creating