First of all, there's no such thing as "the UK head of civil justice". England & Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are three separate legal jurisdictions.

Anyway, I decided to go straight to the source and look at the report that Sir Vos is referencing in his speech. You can read it here: https://cms.lawtechuk.io/uploads/report_smarter_contracts.pd...

Most of the uses of blockchain cited are not Web3, but examples where a private blockchain has been used in place of a traditional database. Notably, there are no examples of 'smart contracts' replacing legal contracts; there are references to e-signatures replacing paper ones, but that's not a blockchain technology.

I've gone through each chapter in the report and looked at three things: one, whether any of the examples cited use blockchain at all; two, whether that blockchain is actually doing something that couldn't be accomplished without blockchain and three, whether it's actually the type of blockchain that is part of the Web3 ecosystem (i.e. permissionless and public). The results do not actually look great for the narrative you're trying to promote, Mr Gupta.

Electronic signatures

This is not a blockchain technology. Next.

Contract automation and management

The chapter summary says: "They may apply blockchain and smart legal contract technology, depending on user requirements." However, not one of the six case studies described in this chapter actually use blockchain. They use electronic signatures on legal documents that are stored in traditional databases. So, while the chapter summary makes a passing mention that some of these platforms can use blockchain if the user requires it for some reason, they haven't been able to find an example where the user actually required blockchain.

Financial services

This chapter looks at the Aurora platform created by Nivaura. A few interesting quotes:

"Nivaura established a digital framework for the use of smart legal contracts in the creation and management of tokenised financial instruments. MIFID and CASS compliance was required to be able to custody money and assets, create stablecoins and tokenised assets, and issue instruments. When conducting these transactions, Nivaura identified that, although the use of blockchain can deliver improvements in respect of clearing and settlement activities, much of the inefficiency in the process occurs before the settlement system is needed - in the structuring and execution of the transactions."

"Nivaura decided to focus on building a foundation within the Aurora platform: developing the technology to generate the documentation and the transaction workflows first, while remaining agnostic to where the instrument is created and managed; in other words, combining traditional methods with the potential use of blockchain technology."

"integrates seamlessly with other platforms through APIs or decentralised blockchain infrastructure using the open specification Aurora protocol"

"the Aurora platform offers the ability to push the data into a blockchain based infrastructure to execute tokenised transactions both traditionally through the clearing systems, as well as through blockchain infrastructure"

Of the three case studies, only one involves the use of a blockchain. This was Santander's September 2019 issuance of a $20M bond on Ethereum. What the report didn't mention is that this bond was redeemed early in December 2019, and Santander since haven't done anything else on Ethereum. Essentially, it was a proof of concept that they did one time and then didn't touch again.

So Aurora is essentially a 'you can connect it to blockchain if you really want to' platform, but there are scant examples of anyone actually needing or wanting to do so.

Insurance

This chapter concerns parametric insurance contracts. Again, it is mostly not about blockchain, but one bullet point does state: "Blockchain technology may enhance the operations of contracts when buyers, sellers, and other stakeholders seek to share data and computational resources across a distributed network, enabling access to verified data at the same time."

The blockchain in this case would be private, not a permissionless public ledger - so not Web3. And there really is no reason to use blockchain for that kind of distributed network, they can just use a private cloud and digital signatures.

Renewable energy

This chapter opens with: "Blockchain technology-based smart legal contracts underpin ‘microgrids’, which enable peer-to-peer and peer-to-grid trading of small amounts of renewable electricity."

It provides three case studies, each one of which uses a private, permissoned blockchain - so again, not Web3. And again, blockchain isn't even necessary for this use case and I don't see what it adds over just using a traditional database.

Trade

The first part of this chapter looks at electronic trade documents, not a blockchain technology.

The second part looks at supply chains: "Supply chains are one of the most promising use cases for digitalisation and blockchain technology, which are already addressing previously unsolvable problems and are a key component of the future of digital trade"

I'm skeptical of this claim - it just seems like another example of using blockchain for the sake of using blockchain. But regardless, the three examples (TradeLens, Provenance and Chainvine) all use private, permissioned blockchains. So again - not Web3, not Ethereum, not cryptocurrency.

Sale of goods and services

Is this a chapter about cryptocurrency transactions? No, it's about DocuSign CLM. Not a blockchain technology.

Logistics and transportation

This chapter is about Amazon Quantum Ledger Database. A private, permissioned blockchain (although Amazon prefers to call it a 'ledger database' in which 'changes are chained together as blocks' - rather telling that they don't even want to touch the word). So yet again: a database that is part-blockchain, sure... but it's not Web3.

Digital representation and ownership of physical assets

This chapter is about Mattereum, a company that ties NFTs to legal contracts called the Matterium Asset Passport. Essentially, since you can't actually change the legal ownership of physical goods solely by trading NFTs, the sale is instead facilitated by the Matterium Asset Passport, which uses a private dispute resolution mechanism instead of the courts in 170 countries that allow for this. An interesting system... if it weren't BS that nobody needs. Because you could do this with digital signatures on legal contracts without involving NFT marketplaces at all. They've made it possible to do a thing with NFTs that people have been doing without NFTs for decades. Another instance of the technology looking for the use case, rather than the use case requiring the technology.

Sport sponsorship

This chapter describes Hunit, which uses digital legal contracts (not smart contracts) for which the signatures are stored on a private, permissioned ledger. Again, not Web3 (noticing a pattern here?) and again just seems to be another case of using blockchain for the sake of using blockchain.

Home buying and selling

Is this a chapter about selling your home as an NFT? No, it's another chapter about the digitisation of legal contracts and signatures. Again there are a few examples here of a private permissioned blockchain being used for data storage, but yet again in all of these cases any form of secure distributed database could be used and blockchain isn't necessary - and regardless, yet again, it's not the type of blockchain that's Web3.

Digital Company

This chapter looks at The Digital Company project, which is mostly about the digitisation of legal contracts and signatures. As in the previous chapter, a private permissioned blockchain is used in place as a database but yet again it appears to be an example of blockchain being used simply for the sake of using blockchain - and yet again, not the type of blockchain that's Web3.