# kaal:claim:5554218-023

**Claim.** The absence of accountability mechanisms in anonymous, automated smart contracts encourages a take the money and run mentality, which makes a historical record of conduct and incentives for ethical behavior necessary.

**Type.** failure  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- anonymous participants
- absence of any external legal or reputational sanction

**Source quote.**

> We argue that the absence of accountability mechanisms in anonymous, automated smart contracts encourages a "take the money and run" mentality, necessitating a historical record of conduct and incentives for ethical behavior.

**From.** Furrer Andreas, Wulf A. Kaal, *Universal Digital Law Codex (UDLC) Building the Legal Infrastructure for the Digital Era* (2025), 5.1 Automation in Code is Law, page 31

**Cite as.** Furrer Andreas, Wulf A. Kaal, Universal Digital Law Codex (UDLC) Building the Legal Infrastructure for the Digital Era (2025). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5554218

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `55738b4035a91b70aa2ddaa127552fe4b373ec641afee2719fbdcabebdcbea44` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Andreas%20and%20Kaal%20-%202025%20-%20Universal%20Digital%20Law%20Codex%20%28UDLC%29%20Building%20the%20Legal%20Infrastructure%20for%20the%20Digital%20Era.pdf

**Failure mode.** Take the money and run  (family: fraud-and-misconduct)

**Topics.** reputation, decentralization, governance-design

**Keywords.** accountability, reputation-systems, anonymity, ethics, decentralized-governance

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