"All Grey Theory?" How "Crypto Assets" are Challenging our Legal System

Over 230 participants and 29 speakers took part in a day focused on "Crypto Assets".

Bitcoin; Credit: Pixabay
Bitcoin; Credit: Pixabay

Under the auspices of the LIT Law Lab, on May 27 the phenomenon of "Crypto Assets" was comprehensively explored in an interdisciplinary way on May 27. As Dean Michael Mayrhofer emphasized during his opening remarks, the conference aimed to contribute a mosaic stone to a better legal understanding of "Crypto Assets". The topic’s relevance became more apparent through remarks made by Pēteris Zilgalvis (EU Commission, head of the "Department of Digital Innovation and Blockchain"). During his keynote speech, RA/StB Dr. Niklas Schmidt provided a comprehensive introduction to the topic and concluded his presentation with a prediction that “crypto assets” mean that legal experts will most likely never run out of work.

The subsequent presentations took place with a strong level of participation by the JKU, ranging from classifying crypto assets under civil law (Assist. Prof. Lukas Klever, Institute for Civil Law), legal corporate issues (Univ. Prof. Eveline Artmann, Institute for Corporate Law), the digital global certificate (Assoz. Univ. Prof. Prof. Thomas Wolkerstorfer, Institute for Corporate Law), constitutional barriers (RA Mag. Philipp Leitner, JKU Linz/LIT Law Lab/SCWP Schindhelm) to assessment under VAT law (Univ. Prof. Michael Tumpel, Institute for Business Taxation). The papers will be published soon as a conference volume.

The program was moderated by Univ. Prof. Eveline Artmann (Institute for Corporate Law), Assoc. Univ. Prof. Thomas Bieber (Institute for Financial Law, Tax Law and Tax Policy) and RA/StB Dr. Niklas Schmidt.