Blockchain-powered distributed governance
for communities, institutions and the world.
THE PLAN
Despite the promises of decentralization, the governance of most blockchain networks is highly centralized.
Yet, these are still early days, and there’s time to move things in a different direction.
Here’s our game plan:
GOAL #1
Diving in
We will examine the onchain and offchain governance of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tezos, to provide an empirical overview of the multiple forces that collectively govern these networks.
GOAL #2
Looking out
With a transdisciplinary approach, we will articulate a set of principles that can support the emergence of distributed governance models, with greater transparency, accountability, representativity and inclusion.
GOAL #3
Building with
We will work in collaboration with selected communities to support and guide them in the process of choosing and implementing their own mechanism of distributed governance.
THE TACTICS
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS
While on chain governance rules are clearly defined within the code of a blockchain, off chain rules are often loosely defined, poorly formalized, or simply non binding. To understand how these underlying power dynamics operate, our team will engage in digital ethnography and analyse specific case studies where the “trustless” nature of blockchains is challenged.
THEORICAL FRAMEWORK
There are several missing links between the existing literature on blockchain governance and previous work on legal theory & philosophy as well as the social & political sciences. Our goal here is to reconceptualize ideas as they apply to a new setting; use existing theories to better explain, predict and understand blockchain governance; and identify whether parts of these theories may need to be revisited or expanded, to better reflect the specificities
DESIGN & MODELLING
Here we will synthesize our empirical and theoretical findings into specific governance models aimed at public and private institutions on the one hand, and blockchain communities on the other hand. We want to explore new ways of leveraging blockchain technology to restore confidence in public and private institutions, companies and organizations; and design new governance models for decentralized communities—local and global.
EXPERIMENTATION
Our premise is that “you cannot understand a system until you try to changeit”. With a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology, our research team will engage in real world settings to work with communities and test the feasibility, acceptability and social implications of new governance models. BlockchainGov will engage in a real world setting to test the feasibility, acceptability and social implications of new governance models
TEAM
PhD Candidate (Legal Theory)
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WE ARE RECRUITING
Communications
Manager
Postdoctoral Researcher
Legal & Constitutional Theory
EVENTS
Upcoming Events
There is no Event
Past Events
Join us tomorrow at the "Exploring Digital Identity for Decentralized Societies" event organised by RadicalxChange Foundation. The event will take place online, learn more and register here. Will take place […]
Paris, 75005 France
Blockchaingov meet up with the Kleros team Chaired by Primavera De Filippi the meeting included our PhD students Tara Merk, Sofía Cossar, Jamilya Kamalova and our colleague Sabine Van Haecke-Lepic Ph.D who together with the Kleros team had […]
NEWS
1st Meeting of ERC BlockchainGov Project
Over the weekend of December 4-5, BlockchainGov held its first in-person meeting in Paris at CERSA (with only a few needing to attend virtually). It’s no surprise but the time together was highly productive and generative, setting the tone and charting the course for our work in 2022.
How to Govern Decentralized Digital Public Goods? Blockchains Between Innovation and Regulation
IGF 2021 – Day 0 – Conference Room 3
European Crypto-Initiative (EUCI) Workshop
The European Crypto Initiative (EUCI) was born to impact current EU draft regulations such as the Markets in Crypto Assets regulation (MICA) to ensure a positive approach on decentralized use cases, open blockchains and permissionless innovation. This workshop included groups on DeFi sandbox, DAO definition and regulation, & DeFi and digital Euro integration
1st Meeting of ERC BlockchainGov Project
A two-day workshop introducing the ERC Research Project with sessions on PhD topics, legitimacy, policy outreach & theory
Cryptogovernance Workshop
This workshop examined how blockchain governance has developed in the wild. Leveraging a unique dataset based on a standard questionnaire instrument, we found that blockchain governance is evolving toward greater sophistication based on 3 factors: market developments, regulation, & application of political theory
Smart Contracts & Legal Contracts
De Filippi, P., Guest Lecture: “Smart Contracts & Legal Contracts” at Fordham Law School (1 hour) as part of the “Securities” course, run by Donna Redel.
This site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The BlockchainGov project has been funded by an European Research Council Grant.