Decentral Block Post

NFTs can now serve as court documents… but they might also be unregistered securities, illegal loot boxes, or come with impossible tax demands.

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) are thought of by most people as just funny pictures that degens on the internet spend far too much money on for poorly understood reasons. But Jason Corbett, managing partner of global blockchain law firm Silk Legal, says new and innovative use cases are beginning to emerge.

“We’ve seen recently the courts allowing the serving of court documents by way of an NFT,” Corbett says, referring to a recent decision by a United Kingdom court to allow notice of the case to be served by airdropping court documents as NFTs to wallets allegedly stolen from the claimant.

This changes our conception of what NFTs are and what rights and responsibilities come with them. Following this precedent, the sending of NFTs can be understood as a type of electronic communication, with the caveat that it is generally public. The sending of NFTs is more comparable to attaching posters to the outer wall of one’s house versus discreetly sliding them into the mailbox.

This comparison to publicly visible posters begs the question of whether this means that individuals controlling blockchain wallets hold responsibility for the NFTs they hold, in the same way as a homeowner would ultimately be responsible for removing obscene or otherwise illegal posters on their property, even if placed there against their will.

Throughout The Oblique Life Global Goals Season 1, we have partnered with Treepoints, a UK-based social enterprise that helps businesses and individuals offset carbon dioxide. This special episode is an opportunity to learn more about their business, and what they hope to achieve in the long run.

Episode 8 presents the challenges that the food industry must overcome to accommodate the 10 billion human population forecast for 2050, while restoring nature and mitigating climate change. There is much to ‘chew over’, from production to storage, trading, transport, packaging, marketing, purchasing, consumption, waste and hunger. As with our earlier sector-specific episodes, we cannot avoid policy, but we should not wait for it. Our speakers share their own solutions, as well as others’, to keep food nutritious, safe and moving.

Episode 8 presents the challenges that the food industry must overcome to accommodate the 10 billion human population forecast for 2050, while restoring nature and mitigating climate change. There is much to ‘chew over’, from production to storage, trading, transport, packaging, marketing, purchasing, consumption, waste and hunger. As with our earlier sector-specific episodes, we cannot avoid policy, but we should not wait for it. Our speakers share their own solutions, as well as others’, to keep food nutritious, safe and moving.

Following the meteoric rise of ‘fast’ fashion, there is now increasing pressure to re-think textiles and apparel. In episode 7, we probe into the industry challenges, from the over-production, self-regulation and environmental impact to consumer behaviour and greenwashing. Yet fashion shapes cultures and identities, and so we need solutions. Our speakers provide them, including their own work and other brands. Awareness and respect along the production and consumption cycle is key. If we shift how, what and why we acquire, and if what we wear is given as long a life as possible, we will not just save the planet. We will reignite our relationship with clothes.

Following the meteoric rise of ‘fast’ fashion, there is now increasing pressure to re-think textiles and apparel. In episode 7, we probe into the industry challenges, from the over-production, self-regulation and environmental impact to consumer behaviour and greenwashing. Yet fashion shapes cultures and identities, and so we need solutions. Our speakers provide them, including their own work and other brands. Awareness and respect along the production and consumption cycle is key. If we shift how, what and why we acquire, and if what we wear is given as long a life as possible, we will not just save the planet. We will reignite our relationship with clothes.

Episode 6 presents the myriad challenges the electronics industry is facing, from design and materials to consumer behaviour, obsolescence and legislation. Even if customers want to be more discerning, there are still few sustainable products on the market as of today. Our speakers present a raft of solutions to shift this sector from being one of the biggest villains to a protagonist of sustainable consumerism. Creativity, not waiting for perfection, collaboration and mutual pressure will be key, whether that is across and by governments, manufacturers and consumers, or between Global North and Global South.

Episode 3 takes an introspective approach, focusing on why we, as consumers, are so susceptible to wanting more than we need. By overconsuming, we are fast-tracking climate change, destroying ecologies, exponentially increasing waste, and finding ourselves caught on a hamster wheel. While materialism gives us a temporary high as it feeds our insecurities, it does not resolve them. Conscious consumers choose and invest in brands that reflect their values, resisting advertising and peer pressure. Making product prices reflective of the true environmental and human cost might also temper consumerism, but as long as we measure countries by gross domestic product and companies by revenue, deleterious consumption will remain a priority for governments and private sector. So collective change is the only way to address systemic issues.

Our first episode investigates how consumerism is causing many of today’s global economic, social and environmental problems, and how individual livelihoods and national economies are driven by it. As populations, purchasing power and materialism grow, we must confront the biggest challenges – the linear economy, globally interconnected supply chain, depletion of natural resources and fear of missing out. We have tools such as policy and legislation, but we also have to focus on behaviour. And of course, we need to discover – even if that means re-discover – and scale up solutions to make twenty-first century consumption sustainable. This episode sets the tone and content for the series.