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ARTICLE · 07 NOVEMBER 2022

Antitrust And Blockchain Technology: Group Boycotts, The Bitmain Case, And The Ethereum "Merge"

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Blockchain is an emerging technology that is already changing the way companies do business. But this doesn't precludn companies using such nascent technology frot getting caught...

United StatesAntitrust/Competition Law
Luis Blanquez
Luis Blanquez

Blockchain is an emerging technology that is already changing the way companies do business. But this doesn't precludn companies using such nascent technology frot getting caught in the same old anticompetitive practices subject to the antitrust laws.

Before diving into the spectrum of anticompetitive behavior that companies using blockchain technology might get involved, let's first explain below what distributed ledger technology ("DLT") and blockchain mean, and what are––at least for now––the different types of blockchains.

In the last section of this article, we also analyze how antitrust group boycotts could apply in a blockchain-setting. And we provide two real life recent examples, the Bitmain case and the Ethereum Merge.

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