Redefining Dispute Resolution Mechanisms for Digital Assets in the Metaverse: Exploring the Role of Blockchain and Emerging Technologies
Abstract
The rapid expansion of digital assets and the metaverse, powered by blockchain and other advanced technologies, presents new challenges for dispute resolution and legal frameworks. This study examines the legal landscape of digital assets, highlighting complexities in contractual obligations, ownership, and governance. As blockchain enables decentralised transactions and ownership—raising issues around security, intellectual property, and jurisdiction—traditional legal systems struggle to keep pace. This research explores blockchain’s potential to enhance dispute resolution via decentralised arbitration and smart contracts, which offer efficiency, immutability, and transparency. Approaches to digital property disputes in the metaverse are evolving, and new alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods, including mediation, arbitration, and online dispute resolution (ODR), are emerging.
Additionally, this study investigates how technologies like virtual reality and artificial intelligence (AI) reshape regulation and enforcement in the metaverse. By analysing regulatory efforts, it identifies key areas where legal frameworks can be improved to protect digital asset owners, promote innovation, and enable fair conflict resolution in a fast-changing virtual economy. Ultimately, the findings underscore the need for adaptive, forward-looking legal responses that embrace technological progress to address the metaverse’s unique challenges.
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