The State Bar of California
is not yet ready to say anything, one way or another, on the legality and
utility of “distributed autonomous organizations” (DAOs), collections of
software code that digitally enable institutions that can run themselves on the
Internet and the blockchain, without human intervention or control.
Asked
about the legal status of these aggregations of code that can enter into “smart
contracts” that executive themselves online, Laura Ernde, Communications
Director at the California State Bar, told Etopia News that “The State
Bar doesn’t have anyone on staff who could comment for your story.”
In
an article in the current edition of the Economist, in an article
entitled “The DAO of accrue,” the author discusses the DAO created by Ethereum and already capitalized with
$150 million in “ether” crypto-currency as an automated venture capital fund.
Diving
even deeper, the American Banker just ran an article entitled “The DAO Might Be Groundbreaking, But Is It Legal?,” by Tanaya Macheel, discussing the legality of the DAO.
Many
DAOs are bound to be created within the jurisdictional confines of the State of
California, and California state law will soon be replete with case law and
possibly statutory regulation on the subject.
The sooner the legal issues raised by the disruptive technologies
associated with the blockchain, “smart contracts,” and DAOs are surfaced and at
least tentatively resolved the better (i.e. faster and smoother) it will be for
the emerging Blockchain Revolution to take place.
Members
of the California State Bar, and everyone else interested in the future of
economics and finance in the 21st century, can start to get up-to-speed
on these subjects by visiting the links included in this article and reading
the material presented there.