Blockchain in Contemporary Private Law

Abstract

This article explores the potential uses of blockchain technology in contemporary private law, with a particular focus on the Brazilian legal system. The author lists the main characteristics of blockchain, as an incremental, immutable, and reliable chain of blocks, and its potential to reconfigure private relationships. The study examines the various ways blockchain applies to the legal sphere (smart contracts, corporate deliberations, DAOs, IoT, IIoT, asset tokenization, evidence production, and arbitration), especially under Brazilian civil law. The methodology consists of a qualitative and analytical approach, based on a critical literature review and a legal-dogmatic analysis of texts relevant to the topic, highlighting Bambara and Allen (2018) for the technical foundations of blockchain among other specialized references concerning its legal applications. The article demonstrates blockchain's transformative potential, offering a new paradigm of legal certainty and decentralized trust, capable of impacting everything from contract theory to supranational corporate structures.