1. Blockchain’s Struggle to Deliver Impersonal Exchange Forthcoming, Minn
Blockchain’s Struggle to Deliver Impersonal Exchange Forthcoming, Minn. J. L. Sci. & Tech.
Benito ARRUÑADA Pompeu Fabra University
Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty
Washington DC, March 22, 2017

2. Outline Introduction: The nature of blockchain & smart contracts
Blockchain & in personam rights
Central enforcement
Contract completion
Blockchain & in rem rights
Interfaces bwn personal & real
Public intervention
Assessing blockchain applications in property
Private blockchains in private ordering
Conveyancing
Property recordation and company registration
Property registration
Consequences for firms, contracts & property

3. Blockchain & rights in personam
Inevitable presence of central enforcers
Ex ante: Write code (rules), run system, store data
Ex post: Change rules  relational element w.r.t. central agent & curators (i.e., trust)
DAO hard fork  blockchain not immutable
Even Ethereum Classic relies on legal recourse
Verifiability of contract content / performance
Smart contracts: Inevitable to complete contracts ex post but for the simplest contracts (e.g., VOD)
Role of “oracles”  trust
Tradeoffs bwn (Automatism + Security) & (Adaptability + Complexity)  need for human judgment

4. Blockchain & rights in rem
Needs interfaces bwn personal & real rights
Even bitcoin relies on exchanges and “wallets”
Insights from the theory of property rights
Effects limited to participants
Public interventions needed:
First registration
Set the status of the blockchain as legal evidence

5. Prospects of blockchain applications in decreasing order
Private blockchains in “private ordering” systems
Contract manufacturing, VI, et al.
Advantage in verifiability of “contractual” content
Conveyancing
Electronic conveyancing: e.g., Sweden project < NZ?
Notarization, but for ID and legal capacity?
Recordation, company registration, corp. actions
Date stamping and archiving–but only after public intervention & in private blockchain
Property registration
Little scope: contract incompletion + legal review

6. Consequences Difficulties  New specialists to bridge these gaps
To reach contract completion  trust & judgment
To transform personal rights into real rights  Interfaces & pubic enforcement
 New specialists to bridge these gaps
 Conventional (?) public action
Enforcement, esp. in rem
Setting requirements for legal evidence

7. Thank your for your attention