Blockchain Governance Toolkit

* Report: De Filippi, Primavera, Sofia Cossar, Morshed Mannan, Kelsie Nabben, Tara Merk, and Jamilya Kamalova. “The Blockchain Governance Toolkit: A Cookbook for a Resilient and Robust Ecosystem” A collaborative effort between Project Liberty Institute and BlockchainGov, May 2024.

URL = https://cdn.sanity.io/files/uhmav2a4/production/612a5ba3ff9e6362fbc9c809888ea59dfbbd4187.pdf

Description

"After examining the governance dynamics of eleven leading blockchain networks, this cookbook translates our insights into actionable tools and recommendations. We aim to help designers develop resilient and robust governance systems for their respective projects, considering their idiosyncratic preferences, goals, and contexts. Given that there is no one-size-fits-all governance system for blockchain networks, we opted to structure this document as a cookbook rather than a technical manual so that we can present multiple governance ‘recipes,’ each with their unique flavors.

We begin by outlining trade-offs along three different sets of values (or ‘flavors’) to be considered in blockchain governance design. Next, we introduce different classes of governance primitives (or ‘ingredients’) that designers can combine to forge their preferred governance system. We also provide examples of how designers of different blockchain systems have chosen to adopt and combine these primitives. Subsequently, building on the notions of resilience and robustness, we argue for incorporating safeguards in the governance of blockchain systems against ‘dominant flavors.’ Next, we provide tools to help governance designers evaluate the impact of their chosen governance design by implementing a set of feedback loops and adaptability structures to align with the expectations of all relevant stakeholders. Finally, we examine how creating legal entities affects the embeddedness of a blockchain system, proposing that they should be seen as a distinct yet highly impactful component of blockchain governance frameworks. While this cookbook is specifically focused on and tailor-made for blockchain networks, the methodology can be adapted for the governance design of other technologies as well."