Prenuptial agreement written into Ethereum smart contract, binding on married life

If you have signed a prenuptial agreement that forbids you from watching horror movies, and you happen to upload that prenuptial agreement to the Ethereum blockchain, then you may be committing a crime if you continue to watch The Walking Dead.

The open-source prenuptial agreement smart contract (PrenupWithLove) is stored on the Ethereum network, visible to everyone and free for anyone to use. It was designed by newlyweds Gaurang Torvekar and Sayalee Kaluskar. Torvekar is the co-founder and CTO of smart contract startup Attores, while Kaluskar is the art director of a brand development agency.

The two wrote on their website:

Everyone knows that blockchain has unlimited potential, and we thought of using it to solve problems in our daily lives. We are getting married in December this year, so why not upload our prenuptial agreement to the blockchain and solve conflicts in a smart way.

A prenuptial agreement sets the basic rules for married life. Most couples use a prenuptial agreement to determine how their common property will be divided, so they can have a safeguard in the event of divorce.

Usage Guidelines

Torvekar and Kaluskar uploaded their prenuptial agreement to the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), and the terms of the agreement were then encoded into a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain.

Before the contract officially takes effect, both parties must indicate their acceptance of the terms of the contract through their IP addresses, and this acceptance process will also be stored in the smart contract.

Both parties must abide by any terms in this agreement.

Smart contracts are the future

In recent years, smart contracts have been highly praised in the financial field. They can be used in many aspects. For example, stock transactions can be carried out automatically as long as the smart contract code is pre-set.

However, the legal status of smart contracts remains controversial. William Mougayar, an advisor to the Ethereum Foundation and author of Business Blockchain , said that even if smart contracts are useful for facilitating automated processes, they are still not legal in today's legal system.

However, it is certain that the legal definition of smart contracts will change in the future. When these boundaries are eliminated, the application of smart contracts in various fields will become more and more extensive, not only in the financial field, but also in law and corporate management.

Today, smart contracts have opened up an unprecedented application area: marriage.

Torvekar and Kaluskar's website states:

The next time we decide what show to watch, a smart contract can help us decide. It can effectively prevent interference and is the single source of truth.