Blockchains, a Law and Economics Perspective

Blockchain is a class of distributed ledger technology, defined as a “system of electronic records that (1) enables a network of independent participants to establish a consensus around (2) the authoritative ordering of cryptographically validated (‘signed’) transactions. These records are made (3) persistent by replicating the data across multiple nodes, and (4) tamper-evident by linking them by cryptographic hashes. (5) The shared result of the reconciliation/consensus process – the ‘ledger’ – serves as the authoritative version for these records” (Rauchs et al. 2018, 24).

Reflecting the experimental phase in which distributed ledger technologies have been developed, there are a variety of blockchain networks in existence which vary in terms of public accessibility.

Find the book chapter here.