Parties may employ a variety of strategies to address jurisdictional considerations arising from cross-border blockchain transactions to establish legal certainty and compliance. One common approach is the inclusion of a choice of law clause in constructed documents, which specifies the applicable jurisdiction’s laws that will be applied in the event there is a dispute. 

Parties might also establish agreements through arbitration clauses forcing matters to resolution in internationally neutral forums, such as international arbitration, as each has some flexibility and is more uniformly recognized in enforcement than would be to simply file for court disposition. Smart contracts might also provide certainty in ensuring that the agreed terms are executed/enforced without additional measures, provided the smart contract has been designed within the governing laws of each jurisdiction. 

A forum selection clause would designate to a specific court or legal body the composition of subject to be handled involving a dispute, providing some certainty regarding jurisdiction of legal process of an involved matter. Further, it is incumbent on each party to consider compliance with local law of each applicable jurisdiction, such as obtaining licensure as a Money Services Business (MSB) or compliance with applicable regulatory schemes. 

Additionally, jurisdictions such as Switzerland, Malta and Estonia have created blockchain regulations as benchmarks for certainty in eventually managing cross-border transactions. Incorporating any of these measures may provide parties with approaches to identify some level of jurisdiction in managing and controlling jurisdictional matters of international distributed ledger transactions to act to reduce legal risks.