Cryptocurrencies and specifically DAOs provide some interesting reading about governance. Most of the writing is in the form of blog posts, twitter threads and the like. In my opinion, the “small probability of a future big win” reason to care also applies to cryptocurrencies since they, with the right scaling solutions and legal status, possibly could replace fiat or at least live along side it. That future would require great governance structures for the projects. The current ones of computing power = voting power in the case of proof of work or wealth = voting power in the case of proof of stake are two examples of governance structures from that space. Another interesting aspect is that miners need to accept the changes to the protocol suggested by the developers which in a sense acts as a control function. The possibility to fork is also very interesting from a governance standpoint.
The DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization, basically organizations with voting rights connected to some kind of token) provides a great opportunity to experiment with governance structures since the governance can be programmed into smart contracts and isn’t required to look a certain way due to some law. That is of course subject to change in a potential future where DAOs play some important role and governments start regulating. I’ve seen models where governance power is tied to reputation systems, your voting power essentially increases as you contribute more (See dxDAO for an example). I’ve also seen alternative voting schemes that use prediction markets to facilitate rapid decision making (See Holographic consensus for an example).
To my knowledge there is some scientific litterature on the subject, a quick search on google scholar using the keywords bitcoin, governance, cryptocurrency, DAO reveals some litterature.
Cryptocurrencies and specifically DAOs provide some interesting reading about governance. Most of the writing is in the form of blog posts, twitter threads and the like. In my opinion, the “small probability of a future big win” reason to care also applies to cryptocurrencies since they, with the right scaling solutions and legal status, possibly could replace fiat or at least live along side it. That future would require great governance structures for the projects. The current ones of computing power = voting power in the case of proof of work or wealth = voting power in the case of proof of stake are two examples of governance structures from that space. Another interesting aspect is that miners need to accept the changes to the protocol suggested by the developers which in a sense acts as a control function. The possibility to fork is also very interesting from a governance standpoint.
The DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization, basically organizations with voting rights connected to some kind of token) provides a great opportunity to experiment with governance structures since the governance can be programmed into smart contracts and isn’t required to look a certain way due to some law. That is of course subject to change in a potential future where DAOs play some important role and governments start regulating. I’ve seen models where governance power is tied to reputation systems, your voting power essentially increases as you contribute more (See dxDAO for an example). I’ve also seen alternative voting schemes that use prediction markets to facilitate rapid decision making (See Holographic consensus for an example).
To my knowledge there is some scientific litterature on the subject, a quick search on google scholar using the keywords bitcoin, governance, cryptocurrency, DAO reveals some litterature.