Smart contracts, DAO and new institutional economics: prospect for interpretation and application of adjustments made in decentralized computing based on the case of the vulnerability of codification in the Ethereum environment

Abstract

The article discusses the interpretation of contracts in the blockchain decentralized computing environment. To do so, it does analyse a 2016 case on a transaction that took place in the Ethereum environment. In this instance, the use of smart contracts would have led to counter-intuitive and disastrous consequences, particularly a loss of about one hundred and sixty million dollars. The potential loss was circumvented thanks to “human intervention” to a codified smart contract. The limits of smart contracts and DAO are addressed through the John Searle’s Chinese Room Argument, according to which there is an essential gap between machine computing and human understanding. It also seeks to challenge the Principles of Private Autonomy and Freedom of Contract in an environment marked by the decentralization of operations and their deleterious consequences to state control. As it is concluded, the New Institutional Economics and the concept of adaptive efficiency may help to understand and set possible ways to settling private controversies backed by contracts in an almost stateless scenario.