The Company and Blockchain Technology
Christian Witting and Martin Petrin (eds), Edward Elgard Handbook on Corporate Liability (Edward Elgar, forthcoming)
24 Pages Posted: 29 Oct 2022 Last revised: 11 Nov 2022
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The Company and Blockchain Technology
The Company and Blockchain Technology
Date Written: October 25, 2022
Abstract
Blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) has generated much excitement over the past decade, with proclamations that it would disrupt everything from elections to finance. Unsurprisingly, the much-maligned corporate form is also considered ripe for disruption. While certainly imperfect, and currently serviced by creaking legal infrastructure premised upon direct shareholdings, are its problems ones of centralization/intermediation? What exactly are the limits of DLT? In this chapter, we propose to expose the ignorance behind the hype that the venerable corporation will either be revitalized by DLT or replaced by Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs). We will demonstrate that proponents of DLT disruption either overestimate the potential of the technology by taking at face value its claims of security without unpacking what said security entails (and what it does not) or lack awareness of the history of and market demand for intermediation as well as the complexities of modern corporations.
Keywords: blockchain, DLT, disintermediation, accounting, DAO
JEL Classification: K22, L20, M41
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation