Non-Economic Mission-Oriented Governance Mechanisms in Ledger Systems

Discussion

Nathan Schneider:

"This kind of design could enable cryptoeconomic networks to serve purposes not reducible to economic feedback loops. 1Hive does so with its combination of a values-laden Community Covenant and enforcement through a cryptoeconomic dispute-resolution system; the community proposes this as a replicable model, known as “Gardens,” for other communities to adopt (sacha,2021). Protocols could also incorporate “golden share” mechanisms, by which a purpose-focused foundation or member-governed cooperative could hold veto power to ensure a network does not stray from a predefined purpose(Purpose Foundation, 2020). Governments have also used golden shares to retain some control over companies managing privatized services (Pezard,1995–1996). Enforceable mission orientation can counteract plutocracy and make externalities more visible to the system.

Temporal modulation:

In their quest for “people-first” governance, the founders of Orca Protocol do not want to depart from economic incentives altogether. But by creating “pods” of users with economic skin in the game, they hope to elevate longer-term thinking over short-term (and potentially short-sighted) feedback loops.Temporal mechanisms can make visible certain externalities that would be less salient under short-term decision-making. The conviction voting system that 1Hive uses, for instance, rewards prolonged commitment. Outside of cryptoeconomics, the US-based Long-Term Stock Exchange is an effort to create an equity market that encourages executives to plan around a more distant horizon than the quarterly cycle that dominates conventional markets. National constitutions generally seek to balance short-term and long-term elected offices, alongside career officials and lifetime appointments. Mech-anisms such as term limits, sunset provisions, and reporting requirements can be used to modulate the time-frames around incentives, thereby placing them in the foreground or background, as appropriate.Long-term incentives are not intrinsically better than short-term ones. But introducing diverse temporal frames can enable diverse inputs, making a system responsive to a wider range of concerns."

(https://osf.io/wzf85/?view_only=a10581ae9a804aa197ac39ebbba05766)