Wisdom Engine

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible.

Bitcoin is an open immutable ledger. It is not anonymous, it is private. There is a huge difference, and it only works when it is not anonymous. Privacy requires traceability, in a way that allows you to have a way to access and validate a transaction. To be fungible, money needs to be linked to records — even cash is; we have invoices and audit trails.

Continuing with business ideas that can be implemented within Bitcoin using the scripting options of BSV, I will detail the concept of a particular form of the Ricardian contract. There are some who believe that such a contract will be the killer application for blockchain, the thing that supersedes current smart contracts.

The only method to maintain decentralisation of power is to set the protocol and lock it. It must be set in stone.

Bitcoin is an immutable evidence trail. It is not about taking down governments. It’s a peer-to-peer cash system with tracing built-in, so that criminals using Bitcoin should be afraid. We have just seen one of the largest child pornography rings in history being taken down because of Bitcoin. Such is the purpose of my invention — a system unlike e-gold, differing from DigiCash’s eCash, and unrelated to Liberty Reserve.

The solution to problems with crime and money laundering always existed within Bitcoin. In the white paper itself, it is explained many times that attackers could be controlled by honest nodes. When I launched Bitcoin, I had not yet completed implementing the system of the alert key, and I still had not fully determined how it would best work. It was always envisioned. When I said that there was a strategy to protect systems based on simplified payment verification (SPV) using alerts from nodes, I was not limiting the nature of alerts to the same one possible form of attack. The difficulty in the implementation, at the time, lay in determining which nodes should be trusted. It involved not the core approach of proofs, but rather one of determining the voting strategies of nodes. Remember here, of course, that nodes are miners.

The Bitcoin system described in the white paper is not ambiguous. It is not open to interpretation. It is a peer-to-peer system of electronic cash. Cash means utility and practicality for daily use to make Internet commerce payments, including for “small casual transactions”, as noted on page 1 of the white paper. Cash means the network must be able to scale to support a high volume of transactions at high speeds and very low costs. For it to work, the underlying protocol must be set in stone, and not open to repeated revision by constantly tinkering developers who do not understand the system they may break. The system described in the white paper is clearly not one whose primary purpose and promotional message involves the storing of value or “digital gold” as a reserve asset.

A little-known fact is that even Bitcoin is a security. The mistake is thinking that this is the issue. Bitcoin is a security that is outside of the S.E.C.’s bailiwick. Bitcoin falls within a few extremely narrow exclusions in the law. These came about as the U.S. Congress “did not intend to provide a broad federal remedy for all fraud” [1]. Although Bitcoin is a security, the S.E.C. is constrained as to what it can act against [2]. There are securities, and there are securities that must be registered. Bitcoin, at least in the form of cash, is a currency and whatever may be created within it and the scripts it allows leaves Bitcoin itself as fundamentally an excluded security.

It is significant to note that the general rule and the exceptions can be altered through agreement and by assignment [ss 35(3),97(3),98(3),179]. As a consequence, a company can commission a work where the company requires the author of the report to sign an agreement that the company owns the copyright. It is possible to assign Copyright ownership through written contract. As a result, it is unwise to make the assumption that the owner of a copyright will be either the creator of the work in question, the company who commissions a work or even the creator’s employer. Before jumping to conclusions, it is essential to check ownership and this should be checked in each particular case.

In Steele v DFC of T (1999) 41 ATR 139 it was held that the expenses were to be treated as allowable deductions, if the taxpayer could satisfy the element that he had the objective of deriving income in the future (i.e. in this instance it would be from the mining of Bitcoin). If a “miner” seeks to engage in a business of mining Bitcoin for profit, the expenses directly related to that enterprise should be deductible as a business deduction.

It is all anyone who believes in freedom should be opposed to. It is something that childish hackers and those aligned to states who oppose freedom seek to promote. It is not simply leaving choice to a mere algorithm, but in taking away the power from the existing system, they seek to weaken the underlying tenets of law and the structure of society. They call it by many names, some say it is anarcho-capitalism, others do not care for the label, but just seek disorder and chaos. Yet with all, the aim is very clear: to undermine the nature of justice.

In order to clear up some areas around my history as the creator of Bitcoin for people, I need to point out a few fallacies. Firstly, there is the fallacy that Satoshi acted in a particular way. The reality is that as Satoshi, I interacted with people who held views that differed from mine. In creating Bitcoin, I sought to create an honest and legally enforceable cash system. To be cash, that is to be money, Bitcoin needs to be neutral. It is not a system that is friendly to crime but a system that is friendly to most people. Such are people who act across the law in a variety of ways.

I don’t need to do what a bunch of cypherpunks told me to do. Evidence has nothing to do with a bunch of idiots who say how keys should be managed because they want anonymity. Evidence is something that is set in law and has been for hundreds of years. I built Bitcoin to be an honest immutable system that wouldn’t suffer from the same problems that ecash, Liberty Reserve US Dollars, and all the rest of the scam systems had.

If you choose to abuse people and say that they must respond to you, you are using force. When you lie and slander others, it is a form of force. It is an illegitimate force and one generally used by criminals. We have a system that has been developed over many decades and centuries. The process of deciding on evidence in a court is well and truly founded and based on reality. Bitcoin is not about changing reality, as some seem to think. You don’t prove anything with the signing of a key. And you don’t do so publicly. If you think so, you have no idea what Bitcoin is about. Then again, the majority of people listen to Core-coin (BTC) developers and are misled by the lies about anonymity. That is, the lies they used to create a system that is friendly to crime. It’s that simple: the same developers are creating a system that is designed in a manner that will allow ransomware to run and pay the developers through an automated system. It is designed to allow untraceable drug sales. It’s designed to provide terrorist funding.

The requirements of such a system are that the rules are set on the day that the system is released. I did so with Bitcoin. Our node implementation, the Bitcoin SV Node, will allow you to take a transaction signed in 2009 and know that you will be able to replay the same transaction and have it accepted by nodes on the network — if it is valid — in the year 2100. Such is what decentralised means. It is why systems such as Ethereum and Core coin (BTC) differ radically from Bitcoin.

By definition, ‘peer-to-peer’ refers to the direct exchange between individuals or other parties. As such, a consumer, Alice, who wishes to purchase goods from a merchant, Bob, would send a transaction directly to Bob. Bob can validate it and send it to the blockchain for clearing and settlement. The process is peer-to-peer. The miners or nodes in the network act as a distributed intermediary. No one intermediary needs to be directly trusted, which differs greatly from any of the current systems. Winston Churchill supported the reintroduction of the gold standard, although at a mispriced level, as it stopped the knaves in Parliament from altering values for political concerns. A distributed system enables a method that will stop such knaves seeking to alter the monetary supply yet not turn them into trusted third parties.

By now, it should be well understood that Bitcoin utilises the concept of a Merkle tree to its advantage; by way of background, we provide an explanation in this post. The following aids as a technical description and definition of similar concepts used more generally in Bitcoin and specifically within SPV; read the necessary background information here.

As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner. Some linking is still unavoidable with multi-input transactions, which necessarily reveal that their inputs were owned by the same owner. The risk is that if the owner of a key is revealed, linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to the same owner.

In a very simple manner, we can see that the nature of being decentralised, as defined by regulators including SEC Commissioner Peirce, implies that my original surmised position was correct. To be at all decentralised, the protocol requires stability. To function within regulation, the protocol must be stable and set in stone.

Bitcoin is not democratic. The rules of Bitcoin were set upon the creation of Bitcoin. There is no cryptographic protection that is associated with how many coins (bitcoin) you have. It is not about centralisation or any other wacky, false analogy by anarchists and criminals. Bitcoin is simply a peer-to-peer cash system that enables micropayments. The system is designed to work with low transaction costs, and it is the first system ever created that will allow the introduction of micropayments.

In 1996, Judge Easterbrook presented and spoke to the University of Chicago Law School. In his speech, he reflected the words of the dean of the school, Gerhard Casper, who related that the University of Chicago did not offer a course on the ‘Law of the Horse’. In doing so, he was noting that university subjects should be limited to courses such as Law and Economics or Law and Literature and that they should avoid areas that are overly specific, such as Law and Cyberspace [1].

It is not necessary for a signature to reference the name of an individual [6]. As in Morton v. Copeland (1855) [7], a signature is not the writing of a person’s Christian name and surname but some mark which identifies it as resulting from the act of the party. For a digital signature algorithm to link the key to an individual and hence the act, there needs to be some way to register and control the signature key. Where such is not the case, it is not possible to say that the individual engaged in the act, and some other extrinsic evidence would need to be provided. Such evidence is not evidence of possessing a key at a later point in time, but it is the ability to introduce extrinsic evidence that proves the control of the key at the time the signature was reportedly made.

Nodes do not merely find a block solution and get paid. Once a block solution has been found, the block needs to be propagated to all other nodes, and the majority of nodes needs to accept the block and build upon it. To be able to spend the payment associated with the consideration paid for its part in verifying transactions and propagating the validated blocks of transactions, the node that has discovered a block needs to ensure that it will gain a level of depth of at least 100 blocks.

Cohen expands on Frankfurt’s philosophy to show that bullshit must fulfil a set of requirements. To be bullshit, it must be “(a) unclarifiably unclear, (b) rubbish, or (c) irretrievably speculative” (Lewis 2015). From Lenin’s (1939) reworking of the term imperialism up until contemporary issues with ‘woke’ culture, we see the introduction of Orwellian doublespeak (Orwell 1984). Communism has been said to have failed. We have been told that history is at an end (Fukuyama 1995)—which is the selfsame promise that Marx and Engels promoted in their socialist utopia (Williams 2000). What is promoted as a concept of freedom where the workingman rises to promote equality for all is a power play. Phillips demonstrates it repeatedly (Phillips 2020a; 2020b)—not in referencing communism, but in removing the foundations of such inconsistent creed.

The New York Post (Barone, 2020) responded writing that the lockdown might have been a colossal mistake. During the American War of Independence, George Washington fought the British whilst a smallpox epidemic raged (Becker, 2004; Lawler, 2020; Martin, 2003). Of course, at such a period in history, people were more used to epidemics and plagues. In the modern world, we live in an environment where many of us believe that we can control nature, that we can stop viruses from spreading and create vaccines in weeks. If you watch television, you could not come away with any other belief. In creating a coddled mindset, in believing that all risk needs to be mitigated, we have forgotten that a trade-off requires an increase in costs for every bit of saving. As we move risk away from one area, we increase it in another.

Bitcoin is a system that does not even need tracing rules. The ledger is so complete that the rules of following apply. But, it needs to be noted that if assets were transferred into a foreign bank, the rules of tracing would apply. You see, tracing presents a change of the asset class. Under tracing law, the asset that has moved can be traced to the point of another asset. Such an asset may be seized. The law of following means that the original asset, including the fully traceable bitcoin tokens, can be seized. If you are told that it cannot happen, you are being lied to.

The next, and arguably more important, component to remember here is that if another number is to be computed in our universe, our universe is not infinite; the time to compute the number must be finite. Unfortunately, computation is an undecidable problem, because a component of mathematics led to what is known as the halting problem (Turing, 1936; Burkholder, 1987). The computation of values may not halt, and the halting problem cannot be solved (Boyer & Moore, 1984). For the same reason, it is infeasible to determine whether any script that can run on a Turing machine will ever end. By its very definition, any computable number, and hence any value that can be solved algorithmically, must end within finite time. What people fail to grasp is that Turing machines do not run programs that cannot be computed algorithmically. Any program that has no algorithmic solution is not a program that is solvable on a Turing machine. Many of them will either fail or, more importantly, continue indefinitely—without ever coming to a solution.

There is a strange belief that non-mining systems can be nodes in Bitcoin (and, by extension, on the BTC [1] network)—without creating blocks. Then there are arguments that they help with ‘routing’ and distributing transactions. Let us imagine now that there are four mining pools called Alice. I will refer to them as Alice(i) to represent each of the nodes (miners/pools) as Alice(0), Alice(1), etc. As the BTC network derives many of its characteristics from Bitcoin, I will not seek to differentiate between the two networks in any depth for this post. But, I will note that the BTC network is merely a copy being passed off as Bitcoin. Equivalently, we will allow a set of other systems, that are not mining blocks, to be called Bob(j). A potentially unlimited number of such systems can connect to the network.

Li et al. (2018) discussed methodologies to increase the number of transactions being processed to around 6400 transactions per second (TPS). The arguments for and against scaling should be simple. Increasing the scale of the blockchain represents an increase in the number of transactions that can be processed in any particular time period. By definition, any blockchain presents a system that collects and processes a set of transactions by building them into a block that a set of paid and funded node operators process through a competitive process such as proof of work, whereby they subsequently publish a verification that other nodes may check for validity.

Pech (2021) conversely notes how the existing legal structures provide ownership and rights in the blockchain. Yet, the author then uses the scenario to argue that the law should change to allow for a system that doesn’t have property rights. In this argument, the author effectively notes that legal frameworks apply, but ‘code-is-law’ methodologies should be introduced.****

Some of the difficulties presented in earlier attempts at solving the problems associated with proof-of-work algorithms were examined by Gardner-Stephen (2007). The research notes that an approximately uniform-cost proof-of-work system is fundamentally flawed. Yet, as with Liu and Camp (2006), the researcher has failed to understand the concept of economic specialisation and proposed a solution based on the assumption that all nodes on the network will create a proof-of-work solution.

Many cypherpunk activists claim Bitcoin as their own (Golumbia, 2016). In their analysis, the authors take the crypto anarchy and concept of virtual communities promoted by Tim May and integrate it with the concept of digital money promoted by the same author (May, 1994). This analysis is then extended by authors such as Anderson (2022, p. 22), who argues that Bitcoin allows “cypherpunks to implement transparency for the powerful.” Yet, this analysis misrepresents the goal of Bitcoin, which differs from the cypherpunk ideal of seeking secrecy and not transparency. While May (1994) argues that one can “view issues of network visibility in terms of the “transparency” of nodes and links between nodes” and that “[t]ransparent means visible to outsiders, perhaps those in law enforcement or the intelligence community,” the concept is that the system should be to a cypherpunk “[o]paque mean[ing] not transparent, not visible.”

Many cypherpunk activists claim Bitcoin as their own (Golumbia, 2016). In their analysis, the authors take the crypto anarchy and concept of virtual communities promoted by Tim May and integrate the concept of digital money promoted by the same author (May, 1994). This analysis is then extended by authors such as Anderson (2022, p. 22), who argues that Bitcoin allows “cypherpunks to implement transparency for the powerful.” Yet, this analysis misrepresents the goal of Bitcoin, which differs from the cypherpunk ideal of seeking secrecy and not transparency. While May (1994) argues that one can “view issues of network visibility […] in terms of the “transparency” of nodes and links between nodes” and that “[t]ransparent means visible to outsiders, perhaps those in law enforcement or the intelligence community,” the concept to a cypherpunk is that the system should be “[o]paque mean[ing] not transparent, not visible.”

The part of Bitcoin that had been missing was the development of a robust cryptographic system where the principles of public key infrastructure (PKI) would be applied. To address this requirement, identity systems that are timestamped against entries in the blockchain but allow real-world identity to be firewalled from public view must be created. This would involve establishing a root key tied to a verified real-world identity. The rightful owner would control this root key, serving as the foundation for generating a series of child keys for various purposes. Under this model, each child key would be used precisely once to sign a transaction or piece of data, ensuring its usage is unique and limiting the potential for unauthorized access or compromise. The signatures would then be recorded on a public, tamper-resistant ledger (the blockchain).

There are many alternatives to the Bitcoin blockchain. Some propositions use scenarios with value that goes beyond the problems that threaten network security. Some altcoins have proposed SETI@home- style solutions for all types of problems including the search for a cancer cure. Whenever we add additional states, these states must be considered along with the overall utility and welfare that results. This creates a social choice problem.

The allocation of bitcoin to a miner does not create wealth; it reallocates existing wealth. If we already have n bitcoin at time t, then at time t+1 (defined by the creation of a new block and the allocation of rewards for mining), we would have the same wealth, W, but it would be more widely distributed. At present, the mining reward (at the time of writing) is r = 25BTC plus transaction fees. Transaction fees should be understood as preferential payments to ensure that those transactions are processed more rapidly than transactions without fees. Consequently, we ignore transaction fees for the purposes of this post because they do not change the overall outcome.

Bitcoin needs to grow. The only way that it will ever be successful is for it to have rapid user adoption. This is not some half-cocked idea that every person on earth must control access by their own wallet that acts as a full mining node. The vast majority of nodes will always be SPV nodes if bitcoin is to be successful. Most people will access their money using third-party tools. This was the way it always was meant to be and it is the way that it will scale and will work.

It is the fool and the idiot that needs to reside in a world that offers little more than attacks and persecution and it is the fool that makes themselves happy in this endeavour. For those who can look past this, for those who can ignore the slanders and deformation and move forth there is opportunity. This is a hard and tragic world and for those who can work beyond it and its associated problems there is much to be gained.

Each of these are done at an 80% acceptance rate in the existing protocol proposal, the first interesting point is that these are not linked. If miners signal to raise the block and failed to implement segregated witness, then by the agreement, the cap needs to be increased. There are some interesting legal aspects to all of this, the first is that this is a binding offer in many aspects of common law. Barry Silbert is a direct participant and investor within Blockstream and this company funds many of the core developers. If we take the decision of [1] Lord Reid in Tesco Supermarkets Limited v Nattrass, we see that the common law has derived such that liability can account for associated action. This is something that transpires when someone is “not acting as a servant, representative, agent or delegate” of the company, but as “an embodiment of the company”. Ties to control under company law standards and the common law mean that Mr Silbert’s agreement can be seen to be binding in a contractual sense. The offer has been made.

A further important issue that surrounds Bitcoin based contracting is the general rule of law that, for an acceptance of an offer, it must be “communicated” to the offeror ([McKendrick [1], 2005; Pp43–44](https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/legal/electronic-contracting-in-an-insecure-world-2088?show=20)). Under normal circumstances, the offeror must receive the acceptance before a contract will come into existence.

A miner of Bitcoin Core (BTC) should be concerned. BTC Hodl’ers should be concerned. Lightning required that malleability be removed as this allows the system to move to long-term channels that with cross chain swaps can eventually remove the underlying commodity cryptocurrency. As noted above, this in all forms is a security and is in the range of systems that require registering and management under the various AML/CTF laws.

In a system such as Bitcoin, or for that matter any decentralised node system, we can describe this as follows, the susceptible state is one where the network has selected a block and is mining seeking a new block solution. In this, block zero [B(0)] is known throughout the network and all miners for practical purposes are mining on it. Next, we have the exposed state. In the exposed state, a miner has discovered a new block solution. One or more miners hold the solution and are now mining on a new block. This needs to be propagated from the miner that discovered the hash solution to all other miners. There is a definite time between the marking of time on an exposed state and the receipt of that block to other miners.

This is the difference that makes bitcoin peer to peer. Not that every person needs to be a miner, but that individuals can exchange transactions directly with each other and quickly verify that mining nodes have received the transaction.

It is not the protocol that needs to be tweaked, it is the software. The protocol is simple. Many do not like this, but this is a part of the beauty of Bitcoin. If you want to do more, you can, in script. A script that is a predicate and which can be seen to always end.

Introduction The Bill of Lading is a document unique document as its negotiability fulfils several purposes. These documents have led to a range of instruments and conventions within international trade. Arrangements which owe their basis of the negotiability of the Bill of Lading are now common place. For these to function as anticipated, the actual and original Bill of Lading must be present through the sale, purchase, letter of credit processes at each stage as the goods on the voyage progress. The system fails when this does not occur. This has led to the use and development of the Letter of Indemnity in international trade.

Footnotes [[1]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref1) United Philippine Lines, Inc v Metalsrussia Corp. Ltd. 1997 AMC 2131 at p. 2133 (S.D. N.Y. 1997). In this case, a letter of indemnity was issued for this purpose. [[2]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref2) Lickbarrow v Mason (1794) STR 683; [[3]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref3) Bowen LJ’s judgment in Sanders v Maclean (1883) 11 QB 304 at 341. [[4]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref4) The Hague-Visby Rules state that a Bill of Lading is an adequate receipt. An indemnity given by the shipper to the carrier is illegal and ineffective when the carrier has made an intentional misrepresentation about the state of the cargo. The Hague-Visby Rules do not contain detailed provisions regarding the legality of the custom of issuing clean bills for defective merchandise against a letter of indemnity from the shipper. [[5]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref5) Situations where the Bill of Lading may contain neither of the Hague, Hague-Visby Rules or even the Hamburg Rules are atypical (the Hague-Visby rules are most commonly used). [[6]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref6) “The International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Bills of Lading” was signed at Brussels on the 25th August 1925 [[7]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref7) “The International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Bills of Lading” was signed at Brussels on 25th August 1924 as amended by the Protocol signed at Brussels on 23rd February 1968 and by the Protocol that was signed at Brussels on 21st December 1972. [[8]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref8) Article III, Rule I [[9]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref9) Article III Rule II [[10]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref10) Article III Rule 6 [[11]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref11) Article IV Rule 5(a) [[12]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref12) Article 3 Rule 8 and Article V, but see Article VI [[13]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref13) Goode R., Commercial Law (2nd Ed) p.902. [[14]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref14) Dromgoole S. & Baatz Y “Interest in Goods” (2nd Ed) Chapter 22 [[15]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref15) The Carso 1930 AMC 1740 at p. 1758 (S.D. N.Y. 1930). [[16]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref16) Tetley, W. “Letters of Indemnity at Shipment and Letters of Guarantee at Discharge” [[17]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref17) Tetley,W. Marine Cargo Claims, 3rd Ed., Editions Yvon Blais, Montreal, 1988, at 821. [[18]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref18) Standard Chartered Bank v. Pakistan National Shipping Corporation and Others (№2) [1998] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. 684 at 688 (Q.B. Com Ct.). Lord Justice Evans, comments regarding Cresswell, J.’s statement in the Court of Appeal decision, approved with the assertions and additionally remarked: “This requirement of honest commerce is stringently enforced by the English Courts. If a false bill of lading is knowingly issued by the master or agent of the shipowner, and if the claimant was intended to rely on it and did rely upon it and as a result of doing so has suffered loss, then the shipowner is liable in damages for the tort of deceit”. (Standard Chartered Bank v. Pakistan National Shipping Corporation and Others (№2) (C.A.), supra note 1, at 221). See also Howard, T. & Davenport, B. “English Maritime Law Update 1994/95” (1996) 27 J. Mar. L. & Com. 427. [[19]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref19) Hazelwood, S.J. P & I Clubs: Law and Practice, 3rd Ed., LLP, London, 2000 at 179. [[20]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref20) Ibid. [[21]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref21) Standard Chartered Bank v Pakistan Nation Shipping Corporation and Others (№2) (C.A.); Hunter Grain v. Hyundai (1993) 117 ALR 507 (Federal Court of Australia). [[22]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref22) Art. 3(4) of the Protocol to Amend the International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law Relating to Bills of Lading, Brussels, 23rd February, 1968 [the Hague/Visby Rules]. [[23]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref23) Art. 16(3)(b). [[24]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref24) Pomerene Bills of Lading Act (United States), 1916, 49 U.S. Code 102, addresses the practice of antedating. Section 22, protects parties who have relied on the date in the bill of lading to their detriment. It is uncommon for statute to include such protections. [[25]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref25) The Stone Gemini [[26]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref26) Pacific Carriers v BNP Paribas (High Court of Australia 5th Aug 2004) [[27]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref27) Collern & Co. v China Ocean Shipping Company [1993] P&I International 16 [[28]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref28) Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992, Section 2.2(a) [[29]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref29) The Stettin (1889) 14 P.D. 142; The Sormorskiy 3068 [1994] 2 Lloyds Rep. 266 {deals where the bill is mislaid}. [[30]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref30) Motis Exports v Dampskisselskabett AF 1912 [1999] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. Affirmed [2000] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. 211 [[31]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref31) Pacific Carriers v BNP Paribas [[32]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref32) P&I Clubs (or Protection and Indemnity Clubs) are covered later in this paper in more detail. [[33]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref33) The Stone Gemini [1999] 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 255 (Federal Court of Australia) [[34]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref34) Leamthong v Artis [2004] EWHC 2226 [[35]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref35) Tetley, W [2004] ETL 287–344 [[36]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref36) See Hunter Grain v. Hyundai; Brown, Jenkinson & Co. v. Percy Dalton; Standard Chartered Bank v. Pakistan National Shipping; St. Paul Fire and Marine Ins v. Typin Steel. [[37]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref37) Brown, Jenkinson & Co., v. Percy Dalton, the court held that a letter of indemnity contract was illegal and unenforceable as the object of the contract was to commit a tort. See Hellenic Lines, Ltd. v. Chemoleum Corp. 1971 AMC 2605 (N.Y. Supr. Ct. App. Div), the majority of the court held that indemnity agreements are against to public policy and thus are not enforceable. [[38]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref38) See Brown, Jenkinson & Co. v. Percy Dalton, & Hellenic Lines, Ltd. v. Chemoleum Corp. [[39]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref39) See Shanghai Ocean-going Shipping Co. v. Xiamen Foreign Trade Co. recapitulated by Chen, at 92. [[40]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref40) Protection and Indemnity Clubs [[41]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref41) Gyselen, L. “P&I Insurance: The European Commission’s Decision Concerning the Agreement of the International Group of P&I Clubs,” in Marine Insurance at the Turn of the Millennium. M. Huybrechts (Ed.) Intersentia, Antwerpen, 1999, 181, at 181. [[42]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref42) Ibid., at 182. [[43]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref43) Tetley, W. International Maritime and Admiralty Law, Editions Yvon Blais, Montreal, 2002, at 591. [[44]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref44) Luddenke, at 36. [[45]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref45) Hazelwood, at 179. [[46]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref46) Ibid. The American Steamship Owners Mutual Protection and Indemnity Association Form Policy, encompasses cargo liability in stipulation 7, but specifically excludes ante-dating in provision 7(g): “(7) Liability for loss of or damage to or in connection with cargo or other property (except mail or parcels post), including baggage and personal effects of passengers, to be carried, carried or which has been carried on board the insured vessel. Provided, however, that no liability shall exist hereunder for: …(g) Loss, damage or expense arising from the intentional issuance of bills of lading prior to receipt of the goods described therein, or covering goods not received at all.” [[47]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref47) Hazelwood, at 179–180. [[48]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref48) The Stone Gemini [1999] 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 255, at 266 (Australian Federal Court. NSW). [[49]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref49) Tetley at 824. [[50]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref50) Ibid. [[51]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref51) Tetley, W [2004] ETL 287–344 [[52]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref52) Hare, J. Shipping Law & Admiralty Jurisdiction in South Africa, Junta & Co., Cape Town, 1999, at 459. [[53]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref53) Ibid., In the United States, the documentary credit is generally refered to as a ‘letter of credit’. [[54]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref54) Wilson, J. Carriage of Goods by Sea, 4th Ed. Longman, England, 2001, at 140. [[55]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref55) Ibid., at 140–141. [[56]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref56) Hare, at 459. [[57]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref57) Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits, 1993 Revision, International Chamber of Commerce Publication №500. A text of UCP 500 can be found at the site: http://www.iccwbo.org/. In the US, the Uniform Commercial Code, regulates documentary credits in a manner similar to that of the UCP 500. [[58]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref58) UCP 500, ibid., Art. 32. [[59]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref59) See Standard Chartered Bank v. Pakistan Nation Shipping Corporation and Others (№2) (C.A.). [[60]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref60) In Standard Chartered Bank v. Pakistan Nation Shipping Corporation and Others (№2) (C.A.), the carrier was held liable in the tort of deceit for antedating bills of lading in exchange for a letter of indemnity. The Court held that the carrier would have no defence to the bank’s claim, who was the holder of the bill of lading, and that the carrier was held to the same standard of commercial honesty that was required form the other parties to the letter of credit transaction. [[61]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref61) Parker, B. “Liability for Incorrectly Clausing Bills of Lading” [2003] LMCLQ 201, at 205. For example see Brown Jenkinson v Percy Dalton, discussing fraudulent misrepresentation with regard to the issuance of clean bills of lading in exchange for letters of indemnity. For cases dealing generally with the tort of negligence and the tort of deceit, see The Saudi Crown [1986] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. 261 (Q.B. Adm. Ct), Standard Chartered Bank v. Pakistan National Shipping Corporation and Others (№2) (C.A), and Hedley Byrne & Co. Ltd. v. Heller & Partners Ltd. [1963] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. 485 (H.L.). [[62]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref62) Ibid., at 258. The 1994 regulations that required ‘fairness’ were the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1994 (U.K). [[63]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref63) ICC International Maritime Bureau, “A Profile on Maritime Fraud”, August 1982. [[64]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref64) Ibid., at 252, citing Nicholas, B. “The Obligation to Disclose Information” in D.R. Harris and D. Tallon, Contract Law Today, Oxford, 1989, 166. The obligation to inform, or the obligation to disclose, arises most commonly in English law in the context of the question of “whether…a right to rescind [a contract] should arise where a contracting party had failed to disclose information that would have affected the other party’s decision to enter the contract.” There are, unique instances in English law where a duty to disclose does arise; Beatson, Anson’s Law of Contract, Oxford, 1998, at 257–269. [[65]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref65) [1985] AC 424, at 439. [[66]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref66) Ibbetson, at 252, taking special note of Beatson, J. “Has the Common Law a Future”[1997] CLJ 291, at 303–307. [[67]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref67) Hunter Grain v. Hyundai, holding the carrier responsible for accepting a letter of indemnity in exchange for a clean bill of lading. [[68]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref68) Ibid. See also Brown Jenkinson v. Percy Dalton, Standard Chartered Bank v. Pakistan Nation Shipping Corporation and Others (№2) (C.A.) supra note 1; United Baltic Corp. v. Dundee Perth & London Shipping Co. (1928) 32 Ll. L. Rep. 272, where the practice of issuing letters of indemnity was criticized by the court, with Wright J. using particularly strong language at p. 272: “The practice of issuing clean bills of lading when goods are damaged is very reprehensible. It leads to trouble, and the people who do it ought to suffer.” [[69]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref69) See Tetley, “Chapter 38: Letters of Indemnity and of Guarantee” at 821, who, at p. 823, states that “letters of indemnity should not be condoned, by the courts, or by commerce, rather they should be discouraged.” See also Hazelwood, at 178. [[70]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref70) See Brown Jenkinson v. Percy Dalton, supra note 1, where the Court of Appeal held that the indemnity was unenforceable because it was an illegal contract, with the purpose of perpetrating fraud on the buyer. See also the Hamburg Rules, which dictate in Article 17.3 that the carrier will have no right of indemnity against the shipper if his intention in issuing the clean bill of lading was to defraud a third party, including a consignee, who acts in reliance on the description of the goods in the bill of lading. [[71]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref71) UNCTAD 2003 [[72]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref72) Tetley, at 824. See also Bokalli, at 118, framing the problem from the point of view of the insurance companies, who, once the good have arrived damaged, pay out and then are subrogated into the rights of the consignees. These firms are often left without recourse as the carrier claims that the damage falls into one of the exculpatory provisions. [[73]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref73) In Xiamen Special Zone Jijian Trade Co. v. Tianjing Ocean Shipping Co. (reported by Xia Chen, “Chinese Law on Carriage of Goods by Sea under Bills of Lading” (1999) 8 Currents Int’l Trade L. J. 89, at 93.) the consignee suspected fraud in the form of antedated bills of lading, however the evidence was not sufficient to unequivocally prove the fraud. The consignee then obtained a court order that mandated that the vessel provide all information related to the loading, and the Court itself also undertook its own investigation. Upon completion of the investigations, the Court held that there was in fact fraud and the carrier was liable. In commentary on the above decision, it has been noted that it is “often not easy for a cargo consignee to prove such fraud between the shipper and the carrier without having been present at the time of loading. [In the above case] the petitioner obtained the court’s order to preserve evidence on board the vessel, in addition to interviewing the vessel’s officials and other crew members and inspecting the cargo by professionals. In the meantime the court also launched an investigation of its own in accordance with Article 74 of the Law of Civil Procedure which provides that when there exists a danger that evidence may disappear or when it is difficult to gather evidence, the parties involved may petition the court for an order to preserve evidence and the court may also initiate its own efforts in preserving the evidence.” (Ibid., at 93). [[74]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref74) Derry v. Peek (1889) 14 A.C. 337 (H.L.) at 374. [[75]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref75) Standard Chartered Bank v. Pakistan National Shipping Corporation and Others (№2), at 224. See also Gaskell, N. Bills of Lading: Law and Contracts, LLP, London, 2000 at 179: “…the act of knowingly issuing a false bill of lading is an intentional deceit or fraud.” [[76]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref76) Standard Chartered Bank v Pakistan National Shipping Corporation and Others (№2), ibid., at 221 and 224. [[77]](http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5766614972114406938#_ftnref77) Tetley, W (2004) [2004] ETL 287–344

The coloured coin transaction contains a pair or multiple pairs of (x, f(x)). Tokens can be exchanged, and new share owners request new pairs (xnew, f(xnew)). Previous (xold f(xnld)) should be removed from the DAC database, and (xold f(xnld)) cannot be accepted as a valid share.

Further, it was noted that the provider of a host computer for third party web pages could be compared to a printer or perhaps a distributor of printed publications. It could also be argued that a Usenet group or bulletin board is analogous to a library, so that the provider should be treated as the librarian.

A botnet or ‘host-net’ consists of a number of Internet-connected computers that may be operating individually or in concert with other internet connected computers. The Bitcoin protocol runs on a peer-to-peer network, and a botnet hosting bots can run on another peer-to-peer network in parallel. In practice these networks will have substantial overlap, as many bots are expected to interact directly with the Blockchain and hence their executing hosts must be part of the bitcoin network. Such a botnet lends itself particularly (though not exclusively) to a distributed computing project involving public participation.