Rise of blockchain reveals legal void between state and decentralised groups | Law

Blockchain technology has created a legal void between the state and decentralised communities.

While legislators have primarily been concerned with the categorisation of digital tokens such as cryptocurrencies, it is decentralised communities that determine what a blockchain does.

A handful of states, including Malta, allow decentralised organisations to register as legal entities. Such measures fail to establish a more flexible legal principle that can extend the rule of law to any decentralised community.

In 1255 Henry III faced a similar legal void between the Crown and groups that were acting as legal entities. From 1199 onwards, there is evidence of villages, towns, parishes and guilds entering into contracts, assuming liabilities and resolving disputes in local courts.

Then, the functional and social existence of a group…