Introducing LegalBlock

A Blockchain Legal Community Promoting Collective Wisdom

This all started with a validated hypothesis. Is there something missing in the Legal arena? Then, we invited some members of the community based on the premise that “We draft the Paper. You add the Color”. This successful experiment of decentralized knowledge and contribution has been an amazing example of what we can achieve together.

During recent weeks we’ve discussed a draft that has developed into The Conceptual Paper. The paper LegalBlock Paper I, was written in a way that, extracting the main statements, it becomes Our Manifesto:

We are LegalBlock A Blockchain Legal Community Promoting Collective Wisdom. A coordinated community of Legal professionals, acting under the umbrella of Collective Wisdom. Not another isolated community. We are immersed in a new reality. The platforms, the protocols, the whole ecosystem is based on a global scale. There is not good jurisdiction or bad jurisdiction. There is not the right opinion or the wrong opinion. “Here” and “there” are not relevant to this new reality anymore. This new Legal approach demands something beyond, and that is the Missing Point. We propose a Community Structure, coordinated by Catalysts promoting Collective Wisdom.

Now it’s time for us to open the doors with our first activity. So far, you may wonder what is all this about? The best answer is: read LegalBlock paper and get familiar with the terminology: Topics, Activities, Reputation, Clusters, Catalysts, Wobbly Table, etc.

Photo by Craig O’Brien photography capturing Point 2 during the Skydivers Set Formation World Record. Eloy, Arizona. 2017

Activity 1 (LBA-1)

“protocols and self-regulation”

Introducing the Interactive Coin Offering protocol proposed by Jason Teutsch, Vitalik Buterin, and Christopher Brown whitepaper, as a potential use case to cover some aspects of Customer Protection from a legal point of view.

Goal:

The goal of this activity is narrowing the gap between what application of blockchain technology can make by its own (developers) and what regulators understand about it (lawyers).

Outcome:

The outcome will be a report/review/recommendation drafted by the designated lawyers in LegalBlock. Then we publish the material and bring it back to the community, in particular, Truebit Community for their support to this activity. Notice that, any project can run a Token Sale implementing this proposed protocol.

Steps:

The First step is introducing the activity, the community vote if they want to carry it on or not. During the same vote period, the postulations take place. The attorneys in charge of the final report can postulate themselves, or the community can delegate their vote to postulate. An email will be sent with the voting options. The Second step is the activity per se. We do a Livestream explaining how the Interactive Coin Offering works. A Q & A session with a special guest. The session is moderated by one Catalyst for LegalBlock, and one guest from the protocol will be answering questions. The attorneys participating in the activity will get “points” (we have no tokens yet) for reputation. The designated Lawyers in charge of the publication will be rewarded with additional points of reputation for their contribution. Our guest for this activity is confirmed and happy to answer questions.

Date:

Proposed date for Q&A session by December 21st. ( After Hanukkah and before Christmas ). Proposed date for report delivery: second half of January 2018 ( considering holidays and vacations).

As you can realize, the activity model includes 1) liquid democracy 2)collaboration and collective wisdom 3)incentives. All this occurs off-chain so far. Therefore, don’t worry about casting a vote with carbon vote or receiving or sending tokens for incentive. We are just starting! Let’s keep it simple.

We believe that technology, as fast as it goes, cannot leave behind the Law. We also believe that Lawyers are struggling to understand what technology can do by itself. Our aim is contributing to narrow that gap.

How to participate?

If you are a Legal practitioner, from any jurisdiction, and you lean to this idea, you are welcome to join us. All the conversation is happening in our Slack group. We plan to hold one activity per month. We have already filled the first quarter 2018 with great support from the proposed guests. Not all the activities are designed in the same way. We the Catalysts propose, and the LegalBlock community votes.

Please fill out this form to receive your invitation

Resources for Activity 1:

Get familiar with the Interactive Coin Offering. Here are some resources:

Finally, we would like to acknowledge the following persons for their support and contribution to this first activity

From a decentralized world with love, The Catalysts.

DISCLAIMER: Blockchain is a disruptive technology that introduces several doubts about its legal nature. LegalBlock aims at being an open forum in which its members and invitees can share views and comments on such technology and its impact on different legal systems. *However, the views and discussions expressed in LegalBlock are merely personal and do NOT constitute legal advice of any sort and do NOT necessarily reflect those of the LegalBlock.