Open AccessProblems of Smart Contracts Application in Transactions in Virtual Property
Author(s) -
Богданова Елена Евгеньевна
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
lex russica/lex russica (russkij zakon)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2686-7869
pISSN - 1729-5920
DOI - 10.17803/1729-5920.2019.152.7.108-118
Subject(s) - smart contract , tangible property , property (philosophy) , law and economics , digitization , cryptocurrency , computer security , computer science , property law , business , real property , law , property rights , political science , economics , philosophy , epistemology , blockchain , computer vision
The author examines the features of the use of smart contracts in transactions in virtual property, taking into account the fact that the smart contract is a way of fulfilling those obligations in which the transfer of property provision takes place in the virtual world with the help of appropriate technical means. It should be recognized that the list of virtual property is open, at the moment it includes, for example, cryptocurrency, domain names, «game property», virtual tokens. The question of the legal nature of objects related to virtual property is relevant: are they a new independent type of property requiring special legal regimes, or are they a form of known property rights? The paper also notes that smart contracts differ in both vulnerabilities in computer code and insufficiently effective legal regulation. Smart contract, in the opinion of the author, is a kind of written (electronic) form of a contract, the peculiarity of which is that the will of the subject is expressed by means of special technical means in the form of program code. In this case, the will to conclude the contract simultaneously means the will to its execution upon the occurrence of certain conditions of the contract circumstances. In conclusion, the author shows that the automation of performance of obligations in particular and the digitization of contract law in general should not create obstacles to the implementation of the fundamental principles of good faith and contractual justice, to assess the proportionality of the distribution of rights and obligations of the parties, the equivalence of their property.