Jennifer Lupo was a practicing attorney for many years before becoming a neutral 22 years ago, and specifically, a public company general counsel in the technology space. Her practice found her handling technology, IP and commercial matters, together with employment. Her Web3 work grew out of that practice. Technology transactions, software IP and commercial disputes increasingly involved digital assets, tokens and code that execute on their own. That led her to focus on how arbitration and mediation can resolve these disputes efficiently while utilizing my technical understanding.
We asked her how her expertise informs her approach on the American Arbitration Association® Blockchain & Web3 Disputes Panel.
What types of Web3 disputes do you most often see in your work? How do they differ from more traditional commercial, financial, or technology disputes?
The most common categories are:
Smart contract failures: code that executed as written but not as the parties intended, or that contained bugs or exploits.
Fraud: rug pulls, Ponzi-style token schemes, pump-and-dump schemes, misrepresentations in token offerings or white papers, phishing and wallet-drainer attacks, and fraudulent transfers traced on-chain.
Token and digital-asset transactions: disputes over token sales, vesting, allocations, and SAFE/SAFT or token-warrant terms.
Software and IP ownership: who owns the code, protocols or AI models, and the licensing, revenue-share and equity arrangements around them.
Custody and wallets: lost or frozen assets, exchange and platform failures, and access-key disputes.
Employment and contractor matters: compensation paid in tokens, and restrictive covenants in decentralized organizations.
They differ from traditional disputes in a few ways. The parties are often pseudonymous or spread across many jurisdictions. Evidence lives on chain, where it is permanent and public. Fraud claims are unusual because the transaction trail is public and permanent, yet the people behind it are often anonymous, so tracing assets is easier than identifying who is responsible. The "contract" may be partly code and partly natural language, so the neutral has to decide which one governs. Asset values can swing sharply while a case is pending, which makes interim relief and damages harder. And some parties are DAOs or other decentralized entities with no clear legal form.
What trends are you seeing in Web3 disputes? What developments do you think will most shape the future of dispute resolution in this area?
AI-related disputes are growing fast. They involve who owns AI-generated work, the data used to train models, and responsibility when AI agents act on their own, including in agentic finance.
Dispute clauses are being written into the code itself. More smart contracts and token agreements specify arbitration, sometimes with automated enforcement or escrow, yet the code written sometimes does not understand the nuances of arbitration or even select arbitral institutions or rule sets.
Regulation is maturing. Clearer rules on digital assets and stablecoins are bringing more institutional players, and more sophisticated disputes, into the space.
Parties want neutrals who understand technology. That's the reason the Web3 panel exists. Parties don't want to spend half the hearing teaching the arbitrator how a blockchain works.
On-chain evidence and AI tools are coming into the process. Both will change how disputes are managed and how evidence is reviewed.
What will shape the field most is whether institutions like the AAA can offer processes that are as fast and global as technology. That means expert neutrals, virtual hearings, fast-track or emergency-type procedures for volatile assets, and awards that can be enforced across borders.