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By Stephen Wink and Adam Zuckerman

Decentralization is the key innovation enabled by blockchain technology, and can have significant technological, economic, and legal implications for web3 companies and protocols. Decentralization remains hard to grasp and define despite its importance. In the web3 spirit of collaboration and open source, Latham has partnered with a16z Crypto to develop two matrices to help enumerate the components of decentralization.

The matrices articulate not only the various categories and factors of decentralization but also suggest…

The Court held that software developers do not owe a duty of care to bitcoin owners who lost their private keys.

By Christian F. McDermott, Andrew C. Moyle, and Nara Yoo

In Tulip Trading Ltd (TTL) v. Bitcoin Association for BSV and others, TTL claimed that personal computers of its CEO, Dr. Craig Wright, were hacked and the encrypted private keys to two addresses holding around 111,000 bitcoin (currently worth over £3.6 billion) belonging to TTL were stolen. TTL also claimed that the hackers deleted copies of the keys, preventing Dr. Wright and TTL from accessing the digital assets at those addresses.

TTL brought action against 16 core developers (Developers) that allegedly control the software in respect of the four relevant digital asset networks (Networks), consisting of one “original” network and three subsequent blockchain copies. In this case, the Court looked at the extent of the Developer’s liability to TTL for the stolen/lost keys.