Crisis

Cryptocurrencies crisis, from the actor's perspective

The state of crisis reveals what actors consider “normal” and what is not: recognition of a gap between the actions prescribed by the design (designers and users) and the actions actually carried out. A strict interpretation of the slogan “code is law” completely invalidates the very concepts of flaws, vulnerabilities, bugs, or even attacks: all results of code are, by definition, normal, indisputable, and legitimate. Hence the paradox: many self-proclaimed coiners from the radicalized camp use crisis terminology—talking about flaws, attacks, and the “honesty” expected of nodes (Nakamoto 2008)—adding to these codes an extra layer of soul, a normativity without which they have no meaning.

"Code is Law" when "Code is flaw" ?

If we are to take the slogan “Code is Law” seriously, in his Lessig original sense (2000): it is impossible to distinguish between code—effective and neutral because it is ‘dry’—and law—flawed and arbitrary because it is “wet” (N. Szabo 2008). If the law is conflictual because of its interpretative dimension, the same is true of “computer code and computer-readable files (insofar as: [if normally] a computer processes them in a consistent manner)” (Ibid.). In times of crisis, precisely, it processes them inconsistently. This interpretative dimension is also inherent in codes. We find the conceptual opposition between the “letter” and the “spirit of the law”: the application of a law presupposes an interpretative activity on the part of the judge, combining the letter of the law (legislative texts and the literal interpretation they allow) and its spirit, which is supposed to capture the underlying intentions of a legislative text. Similarly, Bitcoin's canonical protocol rules go beyond their syntax and semantics (the letter of the codes), encompassing the intentions of developers, community debates, and their compromises, which will result in the inclusion/exclusion of new features, the release of new versions, or even forks.