Contracts ex machina: brief notes about the introductions of Blockchain technology and Smart Contracts

Delber Pinto Gomes

Keywords

Smart Contracts; Blockchain; Financial Sector; Fintech; Contract Law; Commerce.

Abstract

Given the forthcoming advent of new and challenging figures coming from the technological advances of our time, we seek to address in our essay the Smart Contracts, covering the historical and legal framework underpinning them and the possible implementations and impacts of this new technological model in various fields, with particular emphasis on the financial sector. We found very important to carry out this analysis in order to foresee the potential risks and benefits of the Smart Contracts’ application for the professionals in the financial areas in general, by examining the technological base of this new type of contracts, the link with Blockchain technology, its automatic convergence and its legal effects. The adoption of Smart Contracts seems fairly certain due to the spontaneous and practical forms as Smart Contracts allow to articulate the technology with the legal obligations people bound online in a daily basis, and for this reason the Smart Contracts arise as a figure of great importance for Fintech.