A non-contractual approach to smart contracts.

This article examines the legal nature of smart contracts, proposing that beyond viewing them solely as legal contracts, they can also be understood through the concept of abandonment—a unilateral act where one party relinquishes property and another claims it. This approach allows smart contracts, particularly solely code-based ones executed on distributed ledger technology (DLT), to function as machines or "persistent scripts," enabling automatic performance without relying on traditional contract law doctrines or bilateral agreements. The article argues that recognizing smart contracts as either legal contracts or as mechanisms for abandonment would provide users with a choice in how to engage with these technologies, while also addressing challenges such as interpretation, enforcement, and hacking through existing legal principles like negligence. It emphasizes that this perspective does not negate the possibility of smart contracts as legal contracts but suggests a complementary legal framework to better accommodate their unique features.