A week ago, I wrote a post entitled “”, where I suggested that an equilibrium of both elements will be the end of the path that’s currently trying to be paved in the crypto governance ecosystem.
Among other ideas, I quoted Vlad, as he’s been one of the most active and open to discuss researchers on Governance for the last years. Today, I have to quote him again as he’s been the centre of the debate for the last days, due to his “” post.
Incendiary affirmations aside, the fact is that Vlad has actually done quite an effort to read, listen and understand (to certain extent) what legal systems are, and what is their function (even though there´s still more to be done). I myself have had several Twitter based discussions with him regarding coder liabilities, governance participant responsibilities and how in the legal world, things aren’t what you name them, but what the rule determines they are (the Duck example is one of the most used and repeated). Appreciating his approach, I will not focus on criticising his subjective assessments of “Szabo’s law”, but will rather stick to his references to legal systems and its consequences on what he calls “crypto law”, as I came here for the inclusive atmosphere, and not the personal matters.
First things first: when one read posts, or whatever, one must be absolutely aware of “who” is writing about “what” to adjust expectations. In other words, me writing a piece on Smart Contract auditing should make anyone’s expectation lower to the most basic outcome, as I know nothing about code auditing and just the basics about Smart Contracts. Of course, considering that many of us praise about freedom of speech in the crypto space, I can claim that I do have the right to write about a topic I know little about, but I am not responsible if it produces certain level of outrage due to unfulfilled great expectations. Being able to adjust expectations to current context is a very useful skill.
Following Vlad’s structure:
CRYPTO LAW #1: Don´t Break the Protocol.
“Legal systems are protocols for the management of disputes”.
Vlad’s technical influence shows in the first sentences of his post. Of course, if reduced to the minimum, legal systems can be considered to be so, but they are much more. For instance, legal systems are, like economic protocols on the , incentive structures to guide collective behaviour (what Vlad describes as “protocols for preventing disputes”).
“Disputes arise in governance. We follow protocols for managing them”
“Ergo, crypto law exists”.
This is a quite reductive assumption. At this point, the reader has two paths to take: either he understands Vlad is actually considering disputes arising in the crypto space as subject to a new type of law that exists and is created in the same virtual space, or he assumes Vlad is talking about “crypto law” as an area were protocols to manage disputes are needed, more as some sort of “opportunity” for “rule setting” than a “regulatory enforceable body of law”.
Either way, the fact is that from a legal point of view, “crypto law” technically speaking only exists if that “law” matches The Law (as in, Laws passed by legitimate political bodies). If not, the protocols used to manage disputes in the crypto space will only be that: non-compliant protocols. They maybe enforceable, but by any chance they will represent “law”.
Following on, he then makes a curious assumption:
“How this law is interpreted, however, can get complicated”
Complicated specifically (he continues) when core developers have coinciding opinions, or disagreements over one specific matter. The fact that one assumes that crypto law is interpreted by developers when deciding about backwards incompatible changes is a clear manifestation of a) devs assuming real liability b) devs acting as both legislators and subjects of that law.
From a legal point of view, this makes no sense. Devs are subjects to real sound jurisdictions, and Laws that they should not interpret by themselves (try getting some advice from lawyers, they aren´t as bad as their reputation) aren´t made up by their decisions.
CRYPTO LAW #2: Keep Crypto Law Legal.
I find it funny that Vlad is surprised by some of the statements he makes in this section, like:
“Crypto law operates inside many jurisdictions of many legal systems and is very much structured by attempts to avoid disputes with/in these legal systems”.
“Devs make technical decisions in order to minimize their exposure to possible liability”
“That crypto law is structured by existing legal systems is a natural consequence of the fact that crypto law operates in the jurisdictions of existing legal systems”
All of the above would seem pretty clear and obvious for anyone with a law background, and vice versa, does not seem as obvious for technical profiles. Therefore, I am grateful to have someone with a crypto/tech background speaking these words aloud: “keep crypto law legal”.
Please, do so. Keep crypto (anything) legal.
CRYPTO LAW #3: Szabo´s Law.
I’ll just skip this one due to the fuss it’s created, mainly on Twitter. I’ll just add that, imo, Szabo hasn’t created any law, and his personal feelings for immutability ignore the fact that most governance disputes arise inside the “user-product” relationship, which is bound to many different regulations that motivate (or should do so) governance stakeholders and agents beyond immutability protection.
Overall, I
a) notice an abusive use of the word “law”, “legal” or “legally”, many of them in incorrect ways, but expect someone with Vlad’s intellectual ambition to curate this excess. For example:
“Szabo´s Law breaks Crypto Law”
Neither of what Vlad calls “Law” here, actually are jurisdictionally-based enforceable legal systems. They maybe principles and regulations established in a community by some authority to which people feel bound to, and being this the case, it would help a lot if we avoided calling them Laws because we may mislead readers.
b) Appreciate that someone with the public relevance of Vlad acknowledges that “a crypto legal system operating on principles as anti-legal as Szabo’s law (or just on anti-legal principles I would add), will eventually become illegal.” Hopefully, we will continue to develop on this discussion, overcoming Szabo’s personal theories, curating the language, and understanding that Law is something external to the , that affects it directly through its participants if deemed necessary. That is why I keep believing efforts should be directed to building a happy marriage between Code and Law.
Published at Mon, 28 Jan 2019 12:18:22 +0000
