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> Let's assume "code is law" is nonsense, as many comments here say. Then, under what conditions do we define interacting with the blockchain as fradulent? What is fraud and what is not fraud?

The thing is, laws can have issues and bugs as well, just like code! And we have courts to judge not just when someone outright breaks a law but also when someone is skirting on the edges of the law.

Take Germany's "cum ex" scandal for example. Billions of euros were effectively defrauded from the state and on paper the scheme appeared legally sound, but in the end it was all shot down many years later because the actions of the "cum ex" thieves obviously violated the spirit of the law.

The only difference is that blockchains are distributed worldwide and there is no single entity that can be held accountable and forced to execute or reverse any given transaction.

You’re never going to find a binary function that tells you if something is legal or not, in the end it’s up to a human judge to decide. But imagine setting up a search engine and I enter “ Robert'); DROP TABLE INDEX; --” as a search term. Would you say that’s a crime? That’s a perfectly fine thing to search for, right?

Yes, perfectly fine, and the fact that you can paste that string into this website without being put in prison is testament to that!

> You’re never going to find a binary function that tells you if something is legal or not, in the end it’s up to a human judge to decide.

... but the whole point of cryptocurrency, or at least of smart contracts and "DeFi", is to reject that and try to build a parallel system. That's presumably based on a belief that you can write code that behaves the way you intend, regardless of whether you really can do that or not.

So perhaps the judge should decide "Well, you signed up for that when you tried to opt out of having human judgement govern your deals. Have a nice day.".

And in fact perhaps there should be formal statutory law that makes it clear that's what the judge is supposed to decide in any case that isn't itself "borderline" somehow. Which the case at hand shouldn't be.

If I put up a sign „trespassers will be enslaved“ on my property and then force people who trespass to work for me, would that be fine because they knew what they were getting into? You can’t just create your own justice system which contradicts the real one by making contracts.

You can give away your money by making contracts.

> ... but the whole point of cryptocurrency, or at least of smart contracts and "DeFi", is to reject that and try to build a parallel system.

No, it isn't. It might be some peoples desire around it, but by no means all (or even most).

It doesn't add any other value whatsoever, so I'm having trouble with that assertion.

That's neat, but the bitcoin whitepaper opens with:

> Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending.

Why do you think you can dismiss the obvious claim that cryptocurrencies are a form of decentralized finance with a "no, it isn't"?

The physical universe advances from state to state, but we define still can call certain behaviors illegal.

https://xkcd.com/1494/

Alright, please go ahead and define under what legal pretext this guy's behavior might be illegal.

There are other cases where interacting the blockchain is illegal in a very clear manner. Example: if I know an Iranian or North Korean entity has the keys to an Ethereum wallet, and if I send USDT to that wallet as a Western citizen, that is very illegal due to sanctions.

There is a US indictment which lays out the basics of the which laws Medjedovic is accused of breaking.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/canadian-national-charg...