Iowa Introduces Bill to Level Playing Field for Blockchain and Smart Contracts

The bill would give legal recognition to transfers and registrations made through blockchain smart contracts. On March 29, the Iowa House of Representatives passed a bill that seeks to legally recognize transactions and registrations made via blockchain smart contracts. The bill — SF541 — gained Senate approval earlier in the month. Under the auspices of the new bill, smart contracts would be given the same legal status as regular contracts, while distributed-ledger technology would be viewed as a reliable electronic store of record. Regarding smart contracts, the bill states:“The bill....

An Arizona legislator wants to amend state law to account for blockchain signatures and smart contracts, public records show. HB 2417, introduced on 6th February, would make a signature enshrined on a blockchain a legal signature under Arizona law. Conversely, any "record or contract" secured by a blockchain would be "considered to be in an electronic format and to be an electronic record". The bill was put forward by state representative Jeff Weninger. Notably, the bill’s language also explicitly accounts for the use of smart contracts, or self-executing agreements....

MasterCard has spoken out against bitcoin's perceived risks and called for regulators to create a "level playing field" for payments systems. The statements were made as part of an ongoing Australian inquiry into digital currencies, headed by the Senate Standing Committee on Economics. In a document, the credit card company argues that all financial services should be held to the same standard, stating that it is imperative all consumers and merchants are able to conduct business and commerce in a way that is safe and simple for all. The statement says: "It is our view that all....

On January 4, GM tweeted news of its collaboration with Lyft to create self-driving vehicles. This announcement came as the industry was awaiting Ford and Google to announce a partnership for self-driving vehicles this week. Both of these projects promise ripe grounds for smart contracts, blockchain-powered contracts that can tie IoT and vehicle finance together. Smart contract auto leases were among the first applications announced in 2015. Self-driving cars have to potential to be strong vehicles for smart contract technology. Auto finance contracts are particularly suited to smart....

Hackers are soon going to be the new lawyers as the adoption of smart contracts increase in the near future. The advent of Blockchain 2.0 and Blockchain 3.0 has given rise to new ways of automation using Bitcoin’s underlying technology. There are special cryptocurrency platforms like Ethereum, Rootstock, Counterparty, Lisk and more that allows people to create smart contracts on the blockchain. These smart contracts enable automation by allowing developers to set trigger conditions. These trigger conditions are certain prerequisites, when met, will execute the function programmed on the....