This study handles the legal issues in relation to social changes brought by blockchain technology connected to artificial intelligence. Concretely, this study aimed to seek the possibility to secure the normativity implying legal meanings as a countermeasure for giving social legitimacy to various digital acts based on blockchain technology that could be the advanced scientific technology of modern times. Thus, this study also mentions the value and characteristics of legal norms according to legal acts applied with blockchain technology.
As one of the core powers in the 4th industrial revolution era, the blockchain technology is widely-known as technology that would change the industrial structure. The blockchain technology that could be used for financial area such as payment/settlement or stock exchange, electronic notarization, smart contract, establishment of transaction network, easy login program, and government use could become a core digital service that could accelerate new lifestyles.
Nevertheless, this is still a controversial issue. As an example, there is a problem of cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. Bitcoin is digital cryptocurrency based on blockchain technology. The recognition as currency that could be used as a payment method in social transaction was good enough to raise social interest in Bitcoin. Even though Bitcoin was expected to show equal use equipped with universality, in reality, there are some problems like concentrated possession or intervention of speculative elements. For this reason, the problems like regulation or control of cryptocurrency are raised by highlighting the stability of trading system. However, the blockchain technology has the high applicability to sharing economy, public sector, and market as it could greatly reduce complex transaction process and cost, so many people argue the necessity to find the measures for absorbing it into social system somehow.
The blockchain technology is neither settled, nor stable as it is under development yet. And it could also have side effects like technical aggression such as cyber hacking or privacy violation, which makes people demand for giving the legal character to this series of processes. In other words, to establish and settle down the blockchain-based identity authentication or universality as a service model, it would be preferentially required to secure not only the technical stability, but also the normativity as a scale.
Meanwhile, in the present time point moving toward the hyper-connectivity and hyper-intelligence era, it is quite difficult to predict the future environment as it is interlinked with concentration of wealth and digital information gap, which should be also considered in relation to this problem. For this reason, some people remind of its adverse effect and feel afraid of life changes that could be brought by the development of scientific technology. And the safety system to get rid of such uncertainty and fear is legal norms. In order for blockchain technology with infinite potential to be used while its security and transparency are guaranteed and all sorts of social risks are removed, it would be needed to perform policy-level reviews and also to enact a suitable law in time.
For legal assessment, there should be legal facts. In extended society, the legal acts based on blockchain technology are the existing reality and phenomenon. Giving the normativity to it should be more carefully approached as our laws guarantee the development of scientific technologies.