In a 2014 essay titled ‘Artworld Ethereum — Identity, Ownership and Authenticity’, Rhea Myers expounded upon the concept of smart contracts, a term that was coined circa 1993 by computer scientist Nick Szabo. In doing so, she drew upon Lawrence Lessig’s 1999 argument that “code is law”, cleverly and swiftly moving to the notion of truth. The phrase ‘code is law’ had become popular in the blockchain era with suggestions that code should replace law for blockchain based transactions due to its technological prospects for certainty. Or as Myers says: “it is a libertarian attempt to reduce the costs and uncertainty of having to trust human beings and interpret ambiguous human language, or possibly a dystopian replacement of rights and safeguards with binary logic.”

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