Research project

Investigator:
Nikolaos Theodorakis

Abstract:

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that comes with several uses that can revolutionize our daily life. For instance, governments can take advantage of blockchain to issue IDs that cannot be replicated, or monitor taxation reporting in a unique and transparent way. Insurance companies can utilize automatic execution of contracts, financial bodies can secure money and financial asset transfers in a matter of seconds, and the intellectual property sector can distribute and manage IP rights pertinent to music, videos or other protected content.
Despite the multiple benefits of blockchain, and its use in cryptocurrencies, this technology comes with a number of drawbacks. For instance, blockchain appears to be in direct conflict with the recent EU regulation on data protection (GDPR) since it makes it more difficult to attribute liability due to its decentralized nature, and practically impossible to comply with certain privacy rights, like the right to be forgotten (since the blocks cannot be erased, once generated). Further, regulators in the US have expressed concerns regarding the legal status of blockchain applications in different sectors (e.g. liability attribution for AI uses, whether cryptocurrencies should be considered a currency or a property asset, validity of smart contracts etc.).

This project will discuss in detail how does the EU and the US intend to regulate blockchain, whether stringent regulation will have adverse effects for these regions (e.g. shift of innovation technologies to Asia), and whether blockchain applications can co-exist with more traditional legal sectors (e.g. data protection law, IP law, contract law etc).