Description

About the Seminar

There has been much excitement over the past decade over the technology known as the blockchain. However, few lawyers truly understand how blockchains work. Most are content to accept the mantra that blockchains are a form of decentralized, cryptographically secured, immutable ledger. Yet hacks of both exchanges and individuals have been common ever since crypto assets attained any significant value, so one must ask, “What do blockchains actually secure and how do they do so?” The answers will enable us to answer the perhaps more important question, “What don’t  blockchains secure?” Technologists and financiers have little understanding of how asset registries work and the security considerations that underpin the law of property. There is a simplistic belief that an authoritative registry will solve problems of ownership without an understanding of the costs (financial and otherwise) of such registries. The underlying tension in the law of property is insoluble unless one can achieve a state of perfect security, wherein fraud becomes impossible. Yet no technology can do so, least of all blockchains, which are arguably even less secure than centralized  ledgers once a proper cost-benefit analysis is undertaken.

This seminar will provide participants with in-depth understanding of both the nature of blockchain security and its limits as well as a nuanced appreciation of the costs and drawbacks of asset registries.

About the Speaker

Professor Kelvin F K Low’s research interests span the field of private law with a particular interest in property broadly defined. He has published internationally with leading journals such as Law Quarterly Review, Modern Law Review, International & Comparative Law Quarterly, American  journal of Comparative Law, Melbourne University Law Review, Lloyd’s Maritime & Commercial Law Quarterly and Legal Studies, and is co-author of The Law of Personal Property (2nd & 3rd eds) and Tan Sook Yee’s Principles of Singapore Land Law (3rd & 4th eds). His research has been cited by the courts in Australia, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong SAR, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore as well as Law Commissions and law reform bodies in Australia, England and Wales, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland, and Singapore. More recently, he has also been consulted by the English Law Commission in relation to digital assets.