Cryptociety | Sam McCarthy | Substack

This is part 1 of a 2-part essay series on the current state of decentralized governance in crypto, followed by "Governance as a Source of Value."

---------PROTOCOL LEADERSHIP Kain Warwick, Synthetix's former "benevolent dictator," recently explained a problem arising from the decentralized governance of Synthetix. Warwick recalls stepping away from his de facto leadership position and leaving the Spartan Council, a democratically elected body that approved Synthetix protocol changes and was ... See more

An Overview of the Current Challenges Facing Decentralized Governance in DeFi and Ideas for the Future

Decentralized governance is at the heart of the ideological foundation of crypto: equal participation for all actors. The playbook of progressive decentralization is being followed by more decentralized finance (DeFi) projects. Users and tokenholders can now have more control over protocol parameters, treasury spending, and, in general, the industr... See more

---------CONCLUSION DeFi's decentralized governance allows stakeholders to influence protocol development. Decentralized governance with DAOs can replace traditional firms' transaction costs, allowing crypto projects to welcome more diverse ideas and beliefs. To achieve these benefits, operational efficiency does not have to be sacrificed. Incorpor... See more

---------SIGNAL VS NOISE Social governance in DeFi applications is usually coordinated through online forums and Discord channels. Snapshot applications conduct "off-chain" voting before protocol changes are encoded on the blockchain. DeFi governance evolved organically but created a lot of noise because proposals, discussions, and votes spread acr... See more