Cryptocurrencies have been a headache (if not a nightmare) for the law. Ever since Ross Ulbricht launched the Silk Road online marketplace in February 2011, Bitcoin and its ilk have been disrupting the ability of authorities to police the globe, and to ensure that norms, regulations and laws are being observed. For a while, it was believed by some that smart contracts — essentially if-then instructions written into and executed by a blockchain — would do something very similar to the law itself, coming into potential conflict with the globe's legal systems and their jurisdiction over our behavior.
However, in a blog written toward the end of January, law professor Giesela Rühl argued that smart contracts don't necessarily conflict with traditional contract law, and that international law — specifically the European Union's Rome I Regulation — applies to them. This was a rare affirmative statement that blockchain-based contracts can be seamlessly integrated into the globe's existing legal frameworks, all without there needing to be a significant overhaul of said frameworks.