Contracts Ex Machina

Smart contracts are self-executing digital transactions using decentralized cryptographic mechanisms for enforcement. They were theorized more than twenty years ago, but the recent development of Bitcoin and blockchain technologies has rekindled excitement about their potential among technologists and industry. Startup companies and major enterprises alike are now developing smart contract solutions for an array of markets, purporting to offer a digital bypass around traditional contract law. For legal scholars, smart contracts pose a significant question: Do smart contracts offer a superior solution to the problems that contract law addresses? In this article, we aim to understand both the potential and the limitations of smart contracts. We conclude that smart contracts offer novel possibilities, may significantly alter the commercial world, and will demand new legal responses. But smart contracts will not displace contract law. Understanding why not brings into focus the essential role of contract law as a remedial institution. In this way, smart contracts actually illuminate the role of contract law more than they obviate it

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc

Fractional vehicle ownership and revenue generation through blockchain asset tokenization

The automotive industry is on a continuous transition towards a more sustainable and integrated ecosystem influenced by the fast-paced adoption of Electrical Vehicles (EVs) and the developments of emerging technologies such as Automated Vehicles (AVs). The road transportation sector is also experimenting with the emergent decentralized blockchain technology in various ways ranging from supply chain transparency to insurance and tokenization. Some of the recent use cases are the use of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), unique digital assets designed to be immutable, to certify ownership of a vehicle, the data history of it or just for fan base development. The current paper reviews the literature findings concerning the potential of Non-Fungible Tokens for the automotive industry and proposes a new car ownership and revenue generation model using the ERC-1155 token standard. Our proof-of-concept based on fractional vehicle ownership demonstrates the feasibility of such a model that allows for revenue distribution amongst the vehicle owners according to the percentile invested in the vehicle acquisition

Blockchain: A Graph Primer

Bitcoin and its underlying technology Blockchain have become popular in recent years. Designed to facilitate a secure distributed platform without central authorities, Blockchain is heralded as a paradigm that will be as powerful as Big Data, Cloud Computing and Machine learning. Blockchain incorporates novel ideas from various fields such as public key encryption and distributed systems. As such, a reader often comes across resources that explain the Blockchain technology from a certain perspective only, leaving the reader with more questions than before. We will offer a holistic view on Blockchain. Starting with a brief history, we will give the building blocks of Blockchain, and explain their interactions. As graph mining has become a major part its analysis, we will elaborate on graph theoretical aspects of the Blockchain technology. We also devote a section to the future of Blockchain and explain how extensions like Smart Contracts and De-centralized Autonomous Organizations will function. Without assuming any reader expertise, our aim is to provide a concise but complete description of the Blockchain technology.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure