Legally Enforceable Smart-Contract Languages: A Systematic Literature Review.

Vimal Kumar Dwivedi; Vishwajeet Pattanaik; Vipin Deval; Abhishek Dixit; Alex Norta; Kirk Draheim

doi:10.1145/3453475

Legally Enforceable Smart-Contract Languages: A Systematic Literature Review.

Vimal Kumar Dwivedi, Vishwajeet Pattanaik, Vipin Deval, Abhishek Dixit, Alex Norta, Kirk Draheim

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

41 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Smart contracts are a key component of today’s blockchains. They are critical in controlling decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). However, smart contracts are not yet legally binding nor enforceable; this makes it difficult for businesses to adopt the DAO paradigm. Therefore, this study reviews existing Smart Contract Languages (SCL) and identifies properties that are critical to any future SCL for drafting legally binding contracts. This is achieved by conducting a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of white- and grey literature published between 2015 and 2019. Using the SLR methodology, 45 Selected and 28 Supporting Studies detailing 45 state-of-the-art SCLs are selected. Finally, 10 SCL properties that enable legally compliant DAOs are discovered, and specifications for developing SCLs are explored.

Original language	English
Article number	110
Pages (from-to)	1-34
Number of pages	34
Journal	ACM Computing Surveys
Volume	54
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3453475
Publication status	Published (in print/issue) - 5 Jun 2021

Keywords

Blockchain
decentralized autonomous organization
expressiveness
smart contract language
suitability
systematic literature review

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10.1145/3453475

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title = "Legally Enforceable Smart-Contract Languages: A Systematic Literature Review.",

abstract = "Smart contracts are a key component of today{\textquoteright}s blockchains. They are critical in controlling decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). However, smart contracts are not yet legally binding nor enforceable; this makes it difficult for businesses to adopt the DAO paradigm. Therefore, this study reviews existing Smart Contract Languages (SCL) and identifies properties that are critical to any future SCL for drafting legally binding contracts. This is achieved by conducting a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of white- and grey literature published between 2015 and 2019. Using the SLR methodology, 45 Selected and 28 Supporting Studies detailing 45 state-of-the-art SCLs are selected. Finally, 10 SCL properties that enable legally compliant DAOs are discovered, and specifications for developing SCLs are explored.",

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AU - Norta, Alex

AU - Draheim, Kirk

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KW - expressiveness

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KW - suitability

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Legally Enforceable Smart-Contract Languages: A Systematic Literature Review.

Abstract

Keywords

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