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1/ How will law be affected by crypto?
2/ First, we have to see how the current law system is laid out.
3/ At the core of the modern law infrastructure is the English common law.
4/ The problem it solved was to produce a system that was predictable in its outcomes independent of the competence of the judge
5/ The process they followed is stare decisis, which means called "let the decision stand."
6/ The problem with hammurabi code is that it was dependent on the competence or corruption of the judge adjudicating the case.
6/ The problem with hammurabi code is that it was dependent on the competence or corruption of the judge adjudicating the case.
7/ Under this process, the judgement and reason for the decisions will bind future judgments. This tried to remove opinions in the process.
8/ This requires lawyers/judges to understand preceding decisions and before the internet, this was time consuming, and much was unwritten.
9/ English common law evolved with the modern democracy/republic, which consists of three branches: judicial, legislative, and executive.
10/ This is what you know as congress, supreme court, and the president. They write, judge, and enforce the law respectively.
11/ Even though law provides the playing field, there are disagreements with people, corporations, and groups and also violations.
12/ You interact with law on a daily basis. By using Uber, Amazon, Apple, you are bound to certain agreements on their terms of service.
13/ When you get into disagreements. You have to go into arbitration, court, or small claims court. This makes law messy.
14/ In the spectrum of contracts that you have to deal with, the more interpretation you need by a third party the more "wet" it is.
15/ This is the concept of "wet" and "dry" law by @NickSzabo4 The more that third parties need to step in to "mediate" between two parties.
16/ The more "wet" it is. In contrast, "dry" law can be resolved through simpler resolution without too many people involved.
17/ An example of wet law turning into dry law is buying stocks or options. You used to have to go to the brokers or the trading floor.
18/ The act of entering into a contract needed to be "wet" meaning you had to deal with humans along the way to get something done.
19/ Now instead of going to a trading floor or dealing with human brokers, you deal with websites on Charles Schwab.
20/ But wait there's more. The problem with law is that disagreements require evidence.
21/ To present to the court, you need to prove using evidence and a trail of user action.
22/ This is why you have accounting, auditing, security logs, user access logs, revision history.
23/ Double ledger accounting, server access/error logs, user access logs, search history are all used to prove and resolve conflict.
24/ So law: Congress (creates law) -> President (signs) -> People/Businesses interact -> Disagreement -> Judges or third party -> Evidence
25/ How is the related to crypto? The first innovation within crypto was the concept of triple ledger accounting otherwise known as bitcoin.
26/ Triple ledger accounting is allowing multiple people to keep track of a ledger so that you can ensure "accounting" is tamper proof.
27/ This ensures the integrity of bitcoin and provided the basis for the central bank of crypto.
28/ The second big innovation of crypto was Ether, which codified "dry law" with relations to finance specifically ICOs.
29/ Venture capital process is very "wet" involves flying into Silicon Valley, getting introductions, and spending a lot of time talking.
30/ Ether made it so that you didn't have to be physically colocated, and can communicate virtually (youtube, telegram, bitcointalk forum).
31/ Removing the physical barrier and turning something "wet" into "dry" law was a huge innovation.
32/ And now the total amount invested in ICOs is more than the total amount invested at the seed stage.
33/ So where do we go from here in crypto? Anything that needs to be tamper proof and need to be "evidence" need to be on crypto.
34/ Access logs, Error logs, search logs, accounting/auditing. This will ensure trustworthy computing.
35/ The fields affected: computer security (intrusion detection), accounting/auditing (accounting fraud), corporate records (prevent fraud)
36/ Other affected professionals include anyone with maintaining, resolving, and judging evidence/records.
37/ As wet law become more codified into dry law, it will affect contract law, tort law, tort law, property law, equity and trusts, and more
38/ As always, the future is present but not fully distributed. People are already working on these problems.
39/ In conclusion, law will be affected according to how "wet" and "dry" it is. The evidence of dry law will be codified on crypto chain.
40/ Areas that formerly required "wet" law will be converted into "dry" smart contracts.
41/ Since all aspects of society and industry is affected by "dry" or "wet" law, everyone will be affected directly or indirectly.
