ABSTRACT
In 2009, the world’s first ‘cryptoasset’, Bitcoin, was launched on the world’s first operational blockchain network. Since then, blockchain-based digital assets have proliferated in quantity and diversity and now comprise an asset class that is too big to ignore. Many courts around the world have had to grapple directly or incidentally with blockchain-based digital assets. The continued mainstreaming of Bitcoin and the recent rise of Decentralised Finance (‘DeFi’), Non-Fungible Tokens (‘NFTs’) and the ‘metaverse’ concept suggest these new digital objects are here to stay, and will continue to raise novel questions as conventional legal doctrines are applied to the banalities and the controversies of this new asset class. The recent collapse of the ‘stablecoin’ Terra (and its supporting cryptoasset Luna) and subsequent developments have underscored the potentially systemic importance of this asset class and the increasing entanglement of ‘crypto’ with the mainstream economic and financial system …
Allen, Jason G and Wells, Henry and Mauer, Marco, Cryptoassets in Private Law: Emerging Trends and Open Questions from the First 10 Years (August 1, 2022), SMU Centre for AI & Data Governance Research Paper No 06/2022.
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