Open Letter Summary
The letter advocates for technological neutrality, ensuring freedom of choice and adaptability of regulations, irrespective of the technology used. It also emphasizes the need for clarification within the Data Act, as the current text could inadvertently limit the use of Smart Contracts based on public/permissionless technology and introduce uncertainty for already deployed Smart Contracts. This scenario could pose significant challenges for SMEs who heavily rely on these Smart Contracts for their operations and business models.
While we understand the intention of the EU regulator was not to regulate smart contracts deployed on public/permissionless technology, our proposed refinements emphasize three key potential amendments that aim to clarify the regulator’s intention and minimize potential negative impacts (in order of preference):
1. Substitute the term 'Smart Contract' with 'Digital Contract' to reflect the Act's intended scope more accurately and to eliminate ambiguities about the applicability of Article 30's stringent requirements.
2. Clarify the scope of Article 30 in case the change of terminology proves unsuitable. In this scenario, we recommend revising Article 30 to narrow down its applicability to 'Smart Contracts' deployed on private and permissioned electronic data records.
3. Limit Article 2(16) to privately operated and permissioned electronic data records, which, although it is the least favorable option, could still mitigate some of the potential negative impacts if the other two options do not materialize.
We believe these proposed changes align with the principle of technological neutrality, ensuring equal treatment to all technological solutions and fostering an environment conducive to innovation and growth.
Below you can read and download the Open Letter About Concerns and Proposed Refinements Regarding the Regulation of Smart Contracts in the Data Act. If you wish to support this Open Letter, send your logo and information about your organization’s representatives to one of the organisations leading discussions about the Data Act. You can find our email addresses on the About Us page.
Lead organizations:
Signatories:
Viktor Tron, Co-founder
Roald Parmentier, Founder
Ismael Arribas, Co-Founder & CEO
Radoslav Albrecht, Founder & CEO
Sabine de Witte, Chief of Staff
Martin Schmidt, co-founder
Raj K Bagadi, Founder & Director
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Chris Donovan, General Counsel
Daniel Wellinger, Foundation Board Member
Angela Kreienweis, Founder
Miguel Angel Dominguez, Chairman