Decentralised Technology and Technology Neutrality in Legal Rules: An Analysis of De Voogd and Hedqvist

Abstract This article looks at whether the principle of technology neutrality can be applied to the centralised-decentralised scale in a manner similar to its application to the offline-online scale. The analysis is based on two cases of similar circumstances relating to bitcoin exchanges run by early adopters in Estonia and Sweden. The cases exhibit two different ex ante legislative approaches aimed at payments in currencies and the interpretation of the respective legislation by the judiciary in applying these rules to bitcoins and to the activity of exchanging bitcoins. The article examines whether the legal rules applied to the payment infrastructure of currencies were technology neutral and also implemented neutrally or whether, contrary to the principle, there was difference of treatment of decentralised technology outputs – bitcoins – from the centralised technology outputs – legal tender – irrelevant of the functional equivalence of these units of payment.