Governance Minimization — Fred Ehrsam

Good decentralized network governance is one that steers the network through its various stages of development towards more innovative and socially useful functions, while adequately resolving conflicts between different stakeholders participating in or affected by the network.

Existing systems of decentralized network governance differ in two defining aspects: (1) whether rules around implementing changes to the relevant software protocols are included in the software itself; (2) the level of formalization and institutionalization of off-chain governance.

The decentralized crypto protocol community is growing. Unlocking the protocols isn't just for ideological reasons; they'll still work, and anyone can build on them. Like loans, loans, and trading, a decentralized governance system is needed for bitcoin. Crypto startups switching to community governance raises many questions about development, vote... See more

Despite growing acknowledgement that simple token-based governance models have (arguably) critical flaws, the amount of experimentation in the governance realm is low. The key observation is that more experimentation is needed if decentralized governance is going to be sustainable.

By using blockchains as our underlying assurance mechanism, we can codify organizational governance through code and not purely documented principles that rely on humans to coordinate around. In doing so, we foster greater trust between parties by minimizing trust in people and maximizing trust in technology.

The truly interesting stuff is the governance innovation: using network states to organize in ways that would actually not be possible under existing regulations.