Abstract:

The study aims at identifying the civil law nature of relations associated with smart contracts within the framework of implementing the principles of the civil law and establishing the possibility to apply the principles of civil law to the relations under consideration. There is used a combination of various methods during the research. In particular, these methods include general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, generalization, modeling) and special legal ones (analysis of legal literature, formal legal and comparative legal analysis). As the main result of the study, it was noted that the smart contract is legally indifferent, being only a software, a special code. At the same time, the actual relations of the parties, which are set in the process of using a smart contract, can be qualified in different ways: as a special form of contract, a way to fulfill the obligation, civil law contract that has specific features, non-defined way to ensure the fulfillment of an obligation. In conclusion, the author points out that smart contract can save human and financial resources and can provide some independence. The fact of being legally bound this way causes a problem of ensuring effective protection to the entities. The protection of the parties to a smart contract should be carried out according to the basis of the civil law, which are becoming more important due to smart contracts.