Seattle – South Lake Union
Blockchain companies successfully lobbied for legislation that recognized blockchain as a legitimate record-keeping technology. On April 26, 2019, Washington State Governor signed bill SB 563 recognizing the validity of distributed ledger technology.
The bill adds a new chapter to the Revised Code of Washington and it introduces the definitions of
- Blockchain, which means a cryptographically secured, chronological, and decentralized consensus ledger or consensus database maintained via the internet, peer-to-peer network, or other similar interaction;
- Distributed ledger technology, which means any distributed ledger protocol and supporting infrastructure, including blockchain, that uses a distributed, decentralized, shared, and replicated ledger;
- Electronic records, which means a record generated, communicated, received, or stored by electronic means for use in an information system or transmission from one information system to another.
Importantly, according to the Bill, “an electronic record may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is generated, communicated, received, or stored using distributed ledger technology.”
The bill is effective July 28, 2019.
More on the Washington Privacy Act (SB 5376) is available at https://app.leg.wa.gov…
Twenty-eight states have introduced legislation relating to blockchain in 2019. See here.
Bill SB5638 is available at http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov…
For more information on how blockchain technology could impact your legal issues, contact Francesca Giannoni-Crystal. Thanks to Federica Romanelli