BSV Association recently had the opportunity to sit down with Akber Datoo to discuss BSV’s newly published Network Access Rules (NAR).
The NAR is the set of rules regulating the relationship between the BSV Association and the nodes on the BSV Network. They are based on the original Bitcoin protocol rules and those set out in the Bitcoin white paper.
Datoo, who assisted in drafting the NAR, is the Founder and CEO of D2LT where he advises financial institutions at the intersection of Fintech and Legaltech to achieve business optimisation, regulatory compliance and operational efficiencies.
Before D2LT, he started his career at UBS, working as part of the front office IT team within fixed-income derivatives and leading its participation in industry initiatives such as FpML. He then qualified as a lawyer with Allen & Overy, qualifying as an associate in the Derivatives and Structured Finance Group. Datoo also sits on the Law Society’s Technology Law Committee where he chairs the digital assets and smart contracts sub-committee and is a PRIME Finance Expert.
1. Good morning, Akber. As a starting point, could you please introduce yourself and explain your role in drafting the Network Access Rules?
AD: My name is Akber Datoo. I am a Computer Scientist by background. I worked in the city for several years as an IT developer and then basically got pretty frustrated. I had been in financial services and then decided to requalify as a lawyer – but wanted to put the two skill sets together. So 12-13 years ago I left traditional legal practice and decided to merge law and technology.
That’s taken me on a journey through digital assets (where) I now advise several institutions and regulators in those sorts of areas. I also sit on the Law Society’s Technology Law Committee where he chairs the digital assets and smart contracts sub-committee. I am a Professor at the University of Surrey as well, teaching financial services and regulation policy.
2. You touched on your legal history a little bit. Could you possibly expand on your experience drafting important legal documents?
AD: So at D2LT we have assisted with the design and formulation of the Network Access Rules. So we are a consulting firm which operates at the intersection of fintech, legal tech, legal design and process. Increasingly from around 2015-2016, we have also dealt with digital assets and tokenisation. When you think about the (BSV blockchain) network you are thinking of something which is finally able to provide a robust enterprise network. You are building on some very good philosophical ideas. Still, it means you can take it to something robust enough and scalable enough for investors and commercial applications. And that’s really why we got involved in the NAR.
So it’s a lovely story in terms of our involvement. I penned an article that was published by Butterworths Journal for International Finance and Law. I did that with Jeffrey Golden, who has been instrumental in writing the Network Access Rules. We wrote an article that talked about how you might deal with this sort of thing and how you might start to bring some understanding of what these rules are and how they might play together.
And we are fortunate enough that the Association are the stewards of the network. So this article very much resonated with them, bringing together all those strands that I talked about. I guess the rest is history in terms of writing the rules and where we are today.
3. Can you give us an overview of the new Network Access Rules and how they work?
AD: The publication of the Network Access Rules in a way dovetails with the technology and what they are trying to achieve in terms of network certainty. It sets out the basic parameters, so there is an understanding of everyone’s expectations and understanding of how people ought to interact with each other.
What happens if technical issues occur? What happens if people don’t abide by those rules? And at what point do they start impacting other people and how they go about their activities?
This is super important because we’re talking about the digital assets world, an area where there’s lots of grey in terms of the law and the regulations. It’s a new area. You know, we don’t quite know how people might behave. There are also issues around the identity of people that operate on a network.
You know, we’re moving towards wanting an enterprise-level network that gives certainty and, the right commercial basis for things, but potentially without being able to identify other people operating in the way that we’d normally be used to in our day-to-day kind lives and operations. That’s what the Network Access rules offer.
4. Can you briefly explain why you decided to take on the NAR project and its historical importance?
AD: So I think one needs to take it back to that article. And I don’t think either Jeff or myself would have thought that we’d be involved in writing such an important set of rules when publishing that article.
It talked about a Victorian yacht race. And essentially, the Santanita was one of several yachts competing in this race. As with any race, you need to have some idea as to what the rules might be and each competitor agreed to be bound by the rules as published by the Yacht Racing Association.
Now, the association probably had a very clear idea about how the race should be conducted. And some of those rules were published. But the association also needs to worry about how the yachts interact with each other. Within this race, there is a chance that people in the spirit of competition may take it a bit too far. Maybe they try and obtain too much of a competitive edge on somebody else and start to stray into areas that we might regard as not being fair game as part of that race. It may not even be unintentional.
You can start to see from this set of facts the application in the world of digital assets in many ways. When one starts mining on the network, we don’t know exactly how carefully someone reads through the rules or understands them. We don’t know exactly who they might be. Not everyone knows everyone else. But we’ve got an advantage here with the technology that we have today that wouldn’t have been present in the Victorian era.
We’ve now got technology to assist the process that we saw through the creation of these, multilateral relationships between the parties.
5. Can you explain why the Network Access Rules are important from a regulatory standpoint?
AD: The rules of any game are probably the most important thing. So (the NAR) helps the Association distinguish itself in many ways. The first of those is in terms of decentralisation with the right stewardship to guide it through unchartered waters and the fast developing, area of digital assets.
One of the strong advantages is it reinforces, in the context of decentralisation, the multi-lateral nexus between the nodes and people involved. So it reinforces the very heart of these networks, the stability of the network.
It is also very careful to reinforce and acknowledge that the white paper is set in stone. It’s not here to change that. It’s rather here to make sure that we can correctly apply it with all the nuances and facts that might occur.
Disclaimer
The content of this document is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to modify or supersede the contractual rights or obligations of any party to the Network Access Rules. Parties are encouraged to carefully review the Network Access Rules to verify the accuracy of the information presented here. It is assumed that, where necessary, parties will seek guidance from their legal counsel and any other advisors they consider necessary.
Learn more about BSV Association’s Digital Asset Recovery tools:
- Unravelling Blockchain Governance: The BSVA’s approach to Network Stewardship
- Interview: Akber Datoo speaks on the new Network Access Rules
- ELI5: BSV Network Access Rules
- ELI5: BSV Alert System
- Interview: Jeffrey Golden on the new Network Access Rules
- FAQ: Network Access Rules
- Protecting Assets, Ensuring Justice: BSVA’s Alert System and DAR Framework
