Blockchain Protocol Governance Resources
This is the reading list for the first Conspiratus podcast, where we will be discussing protocol governance.
If you want to submit any questions, suggestions and ideas for the first episode podcast, you can find the submission form here. Thanks!
Reading List
Blockchain at Berkeley Governance Slides** (5 min read)
**Alexandra Tran and Steven Elleman (Blockchain at Berkeley) — 12/12/17
Intro lecture given at the Blockchain at Berkeley Deep Dive on Governance. A large portion of these resources were curated by the Blockchain at Berkeley R&D team for the deep dive.
Governance 101 with Vlad Zamfir** (35 min video)
**Vlad Zamfir (Ethereum Foundation) — 11/25/17
Defines governance terms, lays out his ideal governance framework, and explains Ethereum’s governance mechanisms at BeyondBlock Taipei 2017. — 35 minute video
Governance with Arthur Breitman** (23 min video)
**Arthur Breitman (Tezos) — 8/11/17
Describes the necessity and implications of blockchain governance. He then continues to talk about the implementation and incentives in the Tezos model of governance.
Crypto-Governance and the Dangers of Faction** (27 min read)
**Buck Perley (Purse.io) — 10/26/17
A lengthy essay on mistrust, compromise, and partisanship in crypto-governance.
Hard Forks, Soft Forks, Defaults, and Coercion** (5 min read)
**Vitalik Buterin (Ethereum Foundation) — 3/14/2017
Discusses different types of forks and the legitimacy and buy-in needed for each type.
Blockchain Governance: Programming Our Future** (17 min read)
**Fred Ehrsam (Ex-Coinbase) — 11/27/17
Presents an analogy between blockchains and evolving organisms; why we should prioritize governance; a survey of various existing governance mechanisms and future approaches.
Against On-Chain Governance (9 min read)
Vlad Zamfir — 12/1/17
Refutation of the previous resource from Fred Eshram in which Vlad argues against formalized on-chain governance.
Notes on Blockchain Governance** (10 min read)**
Vitalik Buterin — 12/17/17
“[A]rgues that ‘tightly couple’ on-chain voting is overrated, and that the status quo of ‘informal governance’ is much less bad than commonly thought.”
Cosmos Governance and Constitution (30 min read)
Cosmos Team
This wiki by the Cosmos team contains a lot of details about the governance process used by the Cosmos Hub as well as analyses of different governance models employed by other platforms such as Tezos, EOS, and DASH.
The DFINITY “Blockchain Nervous System”** (21 min read)
**DFINITY team — 1/4/17
Thorough look into the structure and reasoning behind DFINITY’s governance model; DFINITY allows for on-chain voting as well as retroactive changes to the blockchain.
Futarchy** (24 min read)
**Vitalik Buterin — 8/21/14
Analysis and description of Futarchy, a prediction market based governance mechanism designed by Robin Hanson. Additional futarchy resources can be found here.
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