Tratamiento jurídico para los smart contracts basados en la tecnología blockchain, en Ecuador: implementación y factibilidad legal

Abstract

Smart Contracts represent a remarkable evolution in the traditional contracting paradigm, in tune with a constantly changing and automation-oriented environment. These innovative technologies, which reconfigure the execution of contracts by adopting IT formulas supported by Blockchain technology, seek to streamline the automatic execution of agreements between the parties involved. This study sets out to examine the implementation and legal recognition of Smart Contracts through a detailed analysis of their origin and their close link with Blockchain technology, which underpins their self-executing capacity dispensing with external interventions. The developed chapters analyze the current treatment of these contracts in the Ecuadorian legislation, identifying an opening towards their study and eventual regulation, as well as their current concordance with the regulations governing contracts in our legal framework. As a result, the legal feasibility of contracting through Smart Contracts is inferred without the need for drastic changes in our regulations, since they are in line with current legislation. However, it is evident the need to elaborate and modify laws that regulate and facilitate the integral management of Smart Contracts, incorporating the essential concepts for their implementation and the new figures that they would introduce. This would provide a more robust legal framework, ensuring greater legal certainty to users when entering into contracts.