- Coin Center executive Peter van Valkenburgh has advised smart contract developers to make their codes immutable to avoid stepping on regulators
- The exec said that such functionality sets devs free in case their creations are used by malicious entities
- He added that enabling multi-signature features isn’t enough
Coin Center’s policy executive Peter van Valkenburgh has advised Dapp developers to make smart contracts whose code can’t be changed. According to van Valkenburgh, this is the only way that web3 developers can avoid crashing with regulators when malicious entities use their creations. van Valkenburgh warned that using multi-signature functionality to allow smart contract code to be altered isn’t enough, an observation that’s likely to be confirmed by the outcome of the ongoing Tornado Cash developer court case.
DAOs Aren’t the Way Out
Speaking during this year’s Bitcoin Policy Summit, van Valkenburgh said that developers on Bitcoin scaling layers will avoid being jailed if they make the code unchangeable.
He also noted that those using DAOs to impose changes on a smart contract are likely to be held liable for malicious activities on their platforms, adding that open-sourcing a protocol’s code is also another way to avoid being held liable for illegal activities on their networks.
According to van Valkenburgh, building Dapps whose code is closed blurs the line on whether or not users carry the burden “for the activities of that smart contract”
The executive observed that the Ethereum network provides a good example to Bitcoin developers on how to starve off regulators.
The EU Contemplates DeFi-specific Laws
Although a U.S. court recently ruled that developers of computer code aren’t liable for how it’s used, Tornado Cash’s developer Roman Storm is still in court on charges of facilitating money laundering.
Van Valkenburgh’s comments come a day after the EU announced that they may consider formulating DeFi-specific rules to govern operations in the DeFi world. It also comes when more web3 platforms are open-sourcing their codes to boost accountability.
With van Valkenburgh’s observations, it’s to be seen whether web3 platforms will embrace his advice.
