Legal Challenge Of Smart Contract And Perfection Of Rule Of Law From The Perspective Of Contract Law

Smart contracts are an important stage in the development of blockchain technology and a sign of the development of the blockchain to the 2.0 era.A smart contract can be simply understood as a "smart agreement" "a contract that can automatically execute the content of the agreement".It is a contract that can be automatically executed on the blockchain and written in the form of code.It has non-tamperable,coded contract content,and automatic Features such as execution and anonymity.These outstanding features make smart contracts have broad application prospects in judicial,real estate,finance,insurance and other fields.Although the application of smart contracts is becoming more and more popular,the academic circles have not yet formed a unified understanding of the legal nature of smart contracts,which mainly include non-legal contract theory,compromise theory and legal contract theory.This article agrees with the viewpoint of the legal contract theory and believes that the smart contract conforms to the attributes of a legal contract in terms of the expression of intent,the validity of the contract and the performance of the contract.Compared with traditional contracts,smart contracts have outstanding advantages such as lower transaction costs,higher transaction efficiency,and safer transactions.At the same time,they also have disadvantages such as insufficient execution flexibility and high technical application thresholds.The shortcomings of smart contracts themselves will,to some extent,impact the principle of freedom of contract,the principle of change of circumstances,the exercise of the right of defense,and the jurisdiction of the law.If the legal challenges brought about by smart contracts are not effectively resolved,it will affect the further widespread promotion and application of smart contracts.Therefore,necessary measures must be taken to regulate smart contracts to meet the requirements of economic and social development in the new era.In addition to the introduction and conclusion,this article is divided into four parts: The first part mainly discusses the legal properties of smart contracts.It gradually understands smart contracts and explains smart contracts from the connotation and extension of smart contracts,academic debates,and exploration of contract properties.It is a legal contract with contract attributes.The second part compares and analyzes smart contracts and traditional contracts,reveals the advantages and characteristics of smart contract and its broad application prospects in practice.The third part mainly discusses the obstacles to the development of smart contracts,analyzes the technical obstacles of smart contracts,and the legal challenges brought about by legal systems such as the principle of contract freedom,the principle of change of situation,the exercise of the right of defense,and jurisdiction.The fourth part mainly discusses the thoughts on improving the rule of law in response to the impact of smart contracts,mainly from exploring the construction of multiple co-governance models,clarifying relevant responsibility subjects,improving the performance mechanism,the application of jurisdiction,and the logical revision of "code as law".This enables smart contracts to be promoted and applied on a broader level.