Crypto Fever

Law, Regulation, and the Promise of Trustless Trust

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6415224
AutoresSusan P Shapiro (American Bar Foundation, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen21
Número1
Páginas87-105
Fecha de publicación2025-06-10
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAnnual Review of Law and Social Science (BOOK_SERIES)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1550-3585 • E-ISSN: 1550-3631
EditorialAnnual Reviews (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-110124-063008
OpenAlexW4411177552
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas23

Cryptocurrency proclaims itself trustless—jettisoning the intermediaries, organizations, and legal authorities (what its creator called trust) upon which the traditional financial system relies. Instead, it offers “trustless trust,” distributing self-regulatory responsibility to software run by decentralized masses of volunteers and deploying a buzzword that denotes safety and privacy of transactions untethered to law, the state, or corporate intermediaries. But decentralization and distributed responsibility have proven difficult to sustain. At every turn, entrepreneurs and users of digital currencies have embraced centralization and new organizational forms, many able to dodge both crypto self-regulation and conventional financial regulation entirely, while enjoying the benefits of their purported trustworthiness. This faux decentralization leaves crypto platforms vulnerable to wrongdoing, but also to the legal and regulatory interventions that mitigate risk in traditional financial instruments. Moreover, crypto technology provides a unique window into misconduct and new opportunities to forestall or regulate it, measures unavailable to conventional currencies

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