Comparative Analysis of Foreign and Domestic Smart Contract Doctrine

Purpose of research. The article considers the approaches of foreign and domestic researchers of private law to the nature of a smart contract, its technical and legal characteristics, and the applicability of existing norms of contract and obligation law to the regulation of legal relations arising from the use of blockchain technology and smart contracts. In addition, attention is drawn to the novelization of a number of norms in Russian civil law. Thus, the emphasis is placed on the statuization of digital rights, electronic transaction forms, and self-executing contracts (part 2 of art. 309 of the civil code of the Russian Federation), as well as the adoption of the law on digital financial assets and digital currency. The purpose of the research is a comparative analysis of foreign and domestic smart contract doctrine in order to determine further vectors for improving Russian civil legislation in terms of creating legal conditions for the formation of the sphere of electronic civil turnover. Conclusions. As a result of the research, the author comes to the conclusion about the extreme difference between the foreign and domestic doctrine of the smart contract. In contrast to domestic legal scholars, foreign researchers of private law seek to adapt existing legal norms to smart contracts; explain their nature solely from the technical side, understanding them as computer code; along with the term smart contract, they use the term legal smart contract to characterize the legal side of the relevant relationship; the main focus is on improving the technical side of the smart contract, ensuring its invulnerability to cyber attacks, which creates favorable conditions for the development of a new interdisciplinary field of research in foreign jurisdictions - «digital law».

smart contract, blockchain, digital economy, civil law