Fair question — two different things are bundled in that paper, and you're right to separate them.
The part that matters here is the technical one: the readiness standard and the chain-split math. That stands on its own, no law required.
"Legal" is the other half, for a different audience. It asks a narrow thing: if a handful of people push a consensus change that splits the chain and wipes out value — after ignoring every red flag to do it — does existing law already have something to say about that? Negligence, fiduciary duty, that kind of analysis. It's not "code is law," and it's not a call to go sue developers. It's mapping what existing law would probably already say if an activation went badly and people lost money — so the exposure is visible before anyone acts, not after.
I kept that half deliberately out of the scorecard. A readiness test shouldn't carry liability theory — it should just tell you whether a change is ready.
Fair question — two different things are bundled in that paper, and you're right to separate them.
The part that matters here is the technical one: the readiness standard and the chain-split math. That stands on its own, no law required.
"Legal" is the other half, for a different audience. It asks a narrow thing: if a handful of people push a consensus change that splits the chain and wipes out value — after ignoring every red flag to do it — does existing law already have something to say about that? Negligence, fiduciary duty, that kind of analysis. It's not "code is law," and it's not a call to go sue developers. It's mapping what existing law would probably already say if an activation went badly and people lost money — so the exposure is visible before anyone acts, not after.
I kept that half deliberately out of the scorecard. A readiness test shouldn't carry liability theory — it should just tell you whether a change is ready.