# kaal:claim:3409548-015

**Claim.** Smart contracts face a legal origin problem: lawyers may argue that they are void and unenforceable, and contract law rules on formation, interpretation, conditions and remedies require substantive adjustment before smart contracts fit within it.

**Type.** condition  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- absent statutory recognition of smart contracts

**Source quote.**

> While smart contracts may reflect the underlying contract between parties, lawyers may argue that "smart contracts" are void and unenforceable under the law.65 Contractual legal rules regarding formation, interpretation, conditions and remedies require substantive adjustments for smart contracts

**From.** Kaal, *Financial Technology and Hedge Funds* (2019), II.3 Blockchain Technology, page 16

**Cite as.** Kaal, Financial Technology and Hedge Funds (2019). SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3409548

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `74227ab2656b06bfe4a29c942fc2ba26df9f476917e0a9f85ec038b8c3402c40` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Kaal%20-%202019%20-%20Financial%20Technology%20and%20Hedge%20Funds.pdf

**Failure mode.** Unenforceability of smart contracts under existing contract law  (family: legal-personality-and-liability-gap)

**Topics.** smart-contracts, law-and-legal-systems

**Keywords.** smart-contracts, enforceability, contract-law, legal-uncertainty

**Related claims.**

- restates: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2998033-004
- extends: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2939127-027
- extends: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/2939127-026
- extends: https://wulfkaal.github.io/claims/3071378-009

**Canonical form.** This markdown file is the canonical hashed representation of the claim. Its sha256 is the content hash used for attestation.