Blockchain, DLT, Tokenization, and Digital Government
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Item The Intelligible Contract(2020-01-07) Cervone, Luca; Palmirani, Monica; Vitali, FabioThis paper introduces a novel model of legal digital contracts automatically executable on Blockchain technologies. Legally enforceable and automatically executable digital contracts are receiving a renewed interest, mostly due to the increasing attention towards Blockchain technologies. However, current implementations of digital contracts are still far from being intelligible to humans, because of their differences with traditional written contracts. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a contribution in bridging the gap between traditional contracts and digital contracts towards the goal of making them intelligible and legal valid. Firstly, after highlighting the shortcomings in current technologies when used for legal digital contracts, the paper introduces a new generic specification for legal digital contracts, namely the Intelligible Contract. Secondly, we describe our implementation of Intelligible Contracts and, as a proof of feasibility, we model a simple scenario by means of our implementation. The paper concludes with some ideas for future research on Intelligible Contracts.Item New Kid On The Block! Understanding Blockchain Adoption in the Public Sector(2020-01-07) Koster, Fay; Borgman, HansBlockchain has been heralded as a technology that can transform entire sectors, including the public sector where blockchain applications are believed to bring a wide range of benefits. The public sector is lagging behind, however, in its actual adoption of blockchain technology, and our understanding of the factors that explain the slow adoption rate, is lacking. Based on seven case studies of blockchain projects at various adoption stages, this research contributes to our understanding of what factors influence blockchain adoption in the public sector. We use an extended TOE framework that includes an inter-organizational perspective. The findings show that adoption is influenced by the hype around—and resistance to—blockchain technology; by top management support, by (perceptions of) the regulatory environment; as well as by trust between blockchain partners, which is both an antecedent as well as a consequence of blockchain adoption.Item Early Regulations of Distributed Ledger Technology/Blockchain Providers: A Comparative Case Study(2020-01-07) Scholl, Hans Jochen; Pomeshchikov, Roman; Rodríguez Bolívar, Manuel PedroDistributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) such as Blockchain have been heralded for their potential to fundamentally disrupt traditional industries and longstanding practices in private and public business-es. In the financial sectors, for example, quite a number of novel financial technology (fintech) services based on DLT/Blockchain have been introduced with cryptocur-rencies representing prominent cases. While the already highly regulated financial sectors have emerged as ear-ly targets for DLT/Blockchain induced disruption, a diverse set of other areas, such as healthcare record keeping, insurance record keeping, industrial and retail supply chain management, property registries, citizen identification systems, and voting systems to name a few, has also come into the focus of DLT/Blockchain innovation. These new types of services might be in need of both complementary and novel regulations for DLT/Blockchain-based services. Interestingly, smaller jurisdictions such as Bermuda, Gibraltar, Malta, and Liechtenstein were among the first to provide advice and regulation for DLT/Blockchain service provisions. The study compares these early regulatory approaches to each other and discusses the prospects of DLT/Blockchain service regulation based on the study’s findings. DLT/Blockchain service regulation appears to incorporate predominantly principle-based rather than rule-based regulations, which makes the regulation en-forcement a uniquely individual case-based task.Item Introduction to the Minitrack on Blockchain, DLT, Tokenization, and Digital Government(2020-01-07) Rodríguez Bolívar, Manuel Pedro; Ølnes, Svein