LAW AND REGULATION

法律和规范

Law is a traditional mechanism of trust. Social relationships operate upon the premise that actors behave irrationally, and the law shall make sure that mechanisms are in place so that social peace is guaranteed. While principles of law seem to be based on objective grounds, the application of the law is entrusted to institutions that can be tampered with. Laws are made by humans, observed, and applied by humans to regulate humans. In this sequence of events, the possibility of irregular behaviour in any block of the institutional chain of the law is high. Such irregular behaviour can quickly lead to a lack of trust.

Now, blockchain is the new trust architecture. It promises to create trust where traditional institutions fail to do so - a very attractive premise from a legal point of view. Yet it poses several questions: can blockchain be successful where traditional trust institutions have failed? What can the law learn from the blockchain? Can the law enable blockchainbased applications, or will it be an obstacle in realizing the potential of blockchain? These are some core legal questions that we discuss across the many different activities within the Centre for DLT, while observing the development of blockchain law as it happens.

法律是一种传统的信任机制。社会关系运作的前提 是，行为人的行为是非理性的，而法律应确保机制到 位，从而保证社会和平。虽然法律原则似乎建立在客 观基础上，但法律的应用却被委托给可以被操弄的机 构。法律是由人类制定的，人类奉行法律并应用法律 来规范人类。这一连串的事件中，法律机构链中的任 何一个环节都有很高的可能性出现不符合规范的行 为。而这种不合规行为会导致信任迅速缺失。

现在，区块链是新的信任架构。它承诺在传统机构 无法做到的地方建立信任——从法律的角度来看， 这是一个非常有吸引力的前提。然而，这也带出了 几个问题：区块链能在传统信托机构失败的地方取 得成功吗？法律能从区块链中学到什么？法律能否 促成基于区块链的应用，还是会成为实现区块链潜 力的障碍？这些都是我们在DLT中心的许多不同活 动中讨论的一些核心法律问题，同时观察区块链法 律的发展情况。

I coordinate modules on policy-related aspects, emerging creative industries and art, and undertake research on regulatory sandboxes and novel models for stakeholder and public engagement. Design and art with a hands-on approach, along with collaboration and prototyping foster an environment that facilitates ease of absorption - therefore we adopt a design methods approach (UX, service design, participatory design, design fiction) to implement ethical and regulatory guidelines into technical infrastructure, and to support decision-making through prototyping. A blockchain future needs to become more inclusive not only with the promises of decentralization but also better integration with existing institutions and culture.