Legal nature of a smart contract in the context of digitalization

Abstract

The development of modern technologies has led to the creation of a new way of concluding agreements through automated systems - smart contracts, the emergence of which was largely due to the development of distributed ledger technology (Blockchain). The article is devoted to the analysis of legislation and doctrinal views of lawyers from different countries on the concept and legal nature of a smart contract. Many diverse points of view on the concept and nature of a smart contract, on the methods of their legal regulation indicate the absence of a proper legal concept of smart contracts that can adequately combine both the technical and legal features of the considered technical and legal phenomenon. The aim of the work is to analyze the legislation and doctrine of various countries to determine the legal nature of the smart contract and substantiate proposals for improving the legislation and eliminating the main shortcomings of the smart contract in practice.