ECB - Legal Working Paper Series

After clearly understanding the ECB and its role in monetary regulation, it’s clear why you should be interested and up to date with the relationship the ECB has with cryptocurrencies. Taking a look at “Legal Working Paper Series – Impact of digital innovation on the processing of electronic payments and contracting: an overview of legal risks” will provide insight to research and legal construct conducted at the ECB. Important points of interest: • Innovative media for the settlement of online and remote transactions: The case of virtual currencies • Conventional settlement media: Strengths, weaknesses and scope for innovation. • VCs and VC networks: Definitions, scope and core legal issues • Distributed ledgers and their underlying technologies: application to payments, strengths, weaknesses and core legal issues • Significance of centralized ledgers for the operation of the modern financial system • DLTs: Definition and types • Legal issues • Smart contracts: Challenges and opportunities • Smart contracts: Working definition • Benefits of DLT – enabled smart contracts • Smart contracts: Other legal challenges and possible solutions