Cyber Pickpockets: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and the Law of Theft
Henry S. Zaytoun · University of North Carolina School of Law Scholarship Repository (University of North Carolina Hospitals) · 2019
innovations in peer-to-peer software protocols 3 commonly known as blockchain technology.These protocols make it possible for individuals to safely and securely complete transactions in digital information of some value, also known as "cryptocurrency," 4 without the need for either a central authority 5 to act as a third party or government-enforced rule of law.6 But what happens when code fails to protect the basic rights that our existing laws have always sought to protect?Bitcoin-a cryptocurrency that is one form of blockchain information-continues to dominate the daily headlines, primarily due to its wild fluctuations in market price.7 The all-time-high market price reached in 2017 correlates, unsurprisingly, with the record number of transactions 8 and wallet users 9 achieved.But the meteoric rise in price occurred without much public discussion of blockchain's technological innovation outside of a relatively small group of COINREPORT (July 27, 2016), https://coinreport.net/into-the-ether-ethereum/[https://perma.cc/GB9X-K53K].3. Protocols, in this sense, are the rules written into the code that govern how the software may be used.See PEDRO FRANCO, UNDERSTANDING BITCOIN: CRYPTOGRAPHY, ENGINEERING, AND ECONOMICS 18 (2015).4. The use of this term merely reflects common usage and the common understanding of the items of value exchanged in basic blockchain transactions.It is not to suggest that these items of value are currency.While some maintain and advocate this position, whether or not the items are currency is inconsequential to the inquiry here.In addition, while the creator of blockchain protocols, Satoshi Nakamoto, and others argued that these items must have value, I do not argue that point here.Rather, this Comment merely assumes a basic premise that if a market exists for some item, it therefore has some value.5. See SATOSHI NAKAMOTO, BITCOIN, BITCOIN: A PEER-TO-PEER ELECTRONIC CASH SYSTEM 4, https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf[https://perma.cc/Y4LH-SC68].6. See John V. Orth, The Rule of Law, 19 GREEN BAG 2D 175, 179 (noting the "generic" definition of the term to mean "a legal system that prevents arbitrariness, guarantees equal treatment, and -in many usages -enforces contracts and protects property").One of the earliest advocates of Bitcoin, Erik Voorhees, now runs a website devoted to promoting Bitcoin and explaining the underlying blockchain technology.The website's tagline is a quotation that embodies the above described sentiment: "Give me control of a nation's money, and I care not who makes its laws."MONEY & ST.,