This presentation looks at how Smart Contracts impact today's legal market. Adrien van den Branden, co-founder of Law Is Code, looks at 1/ Smart Contracts fundamentals 2/ Examples of Smart Contracts 3/ how legal professionals can design their first Smart Contracts 4/ Challenges & Opportunities brought along by Smart Contracts The presentation was made in the context of the Brussels School of Competition "Law & AI" conferences-cycle. For more information, visit https://www.lawiscode.io/ or contact Adrien at adrien@lawfortech.io

1. Sign your First
Smart Contract
26 April 2019
Brussels School of
Competition

2. Which One Is the Fake Smart Contract Project?
2

3. Structure of This Workshop
Smart
Contracts
fundamentals
Examples of
Smart
Contracts
Designing your
first Smart
Contract
Challenges &
opportunities

4. What Is a Smart Contract?
Just a few lines
of codes...why is
this smart?
Because it runs on
the Blockchain!

5. 5
Ethereum (2015):
Storage and Running of Complete Applications
Vitalik Buterin

6. How do Blockchain Properties Apply to Apps?
Transparency
& auditability
Immutability
Decentralisation
Common single
source of truth
Desintermediation
Everyone sees the
application code,
so no malicious
features can be
hidden
No one can alter the
the code after it has
been deployed
All participate in
the running of the
application
No single
stakeholder owns
the app for their
single benefit
All can agree on
a common set of
functions and
data
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7. And So Smart Contracts Were Born
SMART
CONTRACT
“Smart” because it
is capable of
documenting an
agreement AND
enforcing it
“Contract”, because it
requires a signature to
be deployed, and is
(technologically)
binding for its users
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8. The Promise of Smart Contracts
8

9. The Promise of Smart Contracts
9

10. Structure of This Workshop
Smart
Contracts
fundamentals
Examples of
Smart
Contracts
Designing your
first Smart
Contract
Challenges &
opportunities

11. The Most Common Smart Contracts: ICOs
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EOS ultimately reached
$4B, without capital markets
professionals involved in any
fund prospectus

12. A Real-life Insurance Smart Contract: AXA Fizzy
12
T&Cs still 7 pages long...

13. A Voting System: Orange Le Vote
13

14. A DNS: Ethereum Name Service
14

15. A Charity Smart Contract: Cryptorun
15
$1500 raised for BeCode, a
Belgian non-profit

16. Structure of This Workshop
Smart
Contracts
fundamentals
Examples of
Smart
Contracts
Designing your
first Smart
Contract
Challenges &
opportunities

17. Our Use Case Today
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18. Let Us Design the Smart Contract, Step by Step
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Filter clauses to include
in the smart contract:
- Essential
- Irrelevant
- Not implementable
Map the lifecycle of the
contract and resulting
key obligations of the
parties
Identify the parties
involved

19. Structure of This Workshop
Smart
Contracts
fundamentals
Examples of
Smart
Contracts
Designing your
first Smart
Contract
Challenges &
opportunities

20. Some Obvious Tech Challenges We Encountered
20
No Nuances /
Subtleties
Fragile Reliance on
Oracles
Complexity and
Risks of Bugs

21. More Insidious Tech Challenges
21
Scalability Maintainability &
Protocol Upgrades
Structural Bugs
and Dependencies

22. Legal Challenges from the Get-Go
22
Notice Consent Consumer
protection

23. Legal Challenges down to the Wire
23
Force Majeure Abuse of rights Discretion

24. Legal Challenges in Enforcement Mode
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Anonymity Cluelessness Destructiveness

25. What Did We Learn Today?
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- Smart contracts leverage Blockchain’s unique
properties and enable trustless interactions
- Smart contracts perform well for specific use
cases, but are grossly non adapted for nuanced
situations where lawyers remain fully relevant
- The technology is still in its infancy, and so is
the legal framework around it
- Smart contracts provide unique unsolved
challenges for the regulator due to their
immutability, worldwide reach and anonymity

26. Adrien van den Branden
Legal Mind
adrien@lawfortech.io
The Law Is Code Team
Thomas Vanderstraeten
Tech Mind
thomas@cryptizens.io
www.lawiscode.be
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