Gov-Acc Pipeline.

user : Ok, thank you. Can you revise answers after I submitted them? assistant : Good question! Yes, absolutely - you can revise or clarify any answer you've given at any point during our conversation. Just let me know what you'd like to change or add to, and I'll make sure that's reflected in the final summary. You'll also have a chance to review everything at the end before we close. So whenever you want to revise something, just say so and we'll handle it. Ready to dive into the first governance challenge you'd like to explore? user : Yes. Let me start with the problems that are most often brought up. DAO governance is centralised, opaque and very noisy. Votes often pass because a relatively small number of large delegates voted in favour while tokens are hardly ever re-delegated: meaning that a small elite of ‘old’ delegates controls votes. DAO governance seems transparent at the start, until you realise a lot of back-door lobbying is needed to have proposals be accepted and pass. Meanwhile, the open door policy means that there is an immense amount of poorly informed opinions and proposals, with very little tools that effectively and efficiently filter the signal from the noise. I put these problems together because, in my opinion, they are symptoms of the same problem: a lack of governance structure. There are no roles with designated rights and/or responsibilities, no proper ways to elect or hold representatives to account, etc. It results in a system where decisions are made through constant referenda. It constantly gives everyone a voice, making them noisy, and need a lot of consensus building behind the scenes to work properly - making them slow and opaque. It also tends to give people with good networks, recognition, and money oversized power in a community - leading to centralisation of power. Is this clear? assistant : Yes, that's very clear - you've connected several surface-level symptoms to a deeper structural issue. Just to make sure I'm capturing this accurately: You're saying the lack of formal governance structure (defined roles, accountability mechanisms, representative systems) creates a vacuum that gets filled by informal power dynamics, backroom consensus-building, and dominance by well-connected early participants. The "constant referendum" model amplifies all of these problems. ### What evidence or examples demonstrate this is a real problem? This could include failed proposals, low participation rates, specific incidents, data you've observed, or patterns you've noticed across projects. user : There are several types of evidence for this problem: Centralisation of governance tokens in the hands of a few whales, the lack of re-delegation of tokens in many DAOs, declining voter participation (as you mention) is another, as it the decline in forum participation at DAOs. Finally there are many studies that have described these types of issues at specific DAOs. Cossar et al. (2024): Ethnographic Research of the PoH DAO Crisis is one. Chabbani (2025) The History of Teia and its ancestor, Hicetnunc.xyz is another assistant : ### What specific governance challenge or problem are you observing? Please be as concrete as possible about what's happening and why it matters. user : There have been several innovative solutions to the previous (widely observed) problems. But these solutions tend to focus on one specific technical issues, instead of tackling the underlying problem: a lack of institutional governance structure. For instance, a governance protocol tries to solve delegation, or security, efficiency, flexibility, or the noise problem. There are no real innovative approaches, among DAO governance that are rethinking DAO governance from the ground-up to tackle these issues in unison. assistant : Would you like to share another governance problem, or should we move on to exploring solutions and who's working on them? user : Can I first give some additional evidence to the problem I mentioned? assistant : Of course! Please go ahead and share the additional evidence. user : Hats Protocol (regarding delegation), Aragon OSx (modularity), Zodiac (treasury management), Kleros as court (accountability). assistant : Got it - so these are examples of tools that each address one specific technical aspect (delegation, modularity, treasury management, accountability) but don't provide an integrated approach to the underlying structural problem. Would you like to share another governance problem, or should we move on to exploring solutions and who's working on them? user : Still a lack of insights from real world governance being applied to the design of new governance protocols. There is an increasing body of scholarship that tries to apply insights from real world governance into the design of on-chain governance. These insights are, to some extent, used to design new governance protocols. But the resulting protocols are, until now, still bespoke, rigid or limited in scope. It limits their broader appeal. Examples are the bicameral system that the Optimism Collective designed, Lido’s Dual Governance structure, Aave when it comes to creating councils, Aragon OSx and Zodiac when it comes to separating powers in governance. assistant : ### What evidence or examples demonstrate this is a real problem? This could include failed proposals, low participation rates, specific incidents, data you've observed, or patterns you've noticed across projects. user : Some examples of scholarship that makes these links: https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/chain-dynamics-blockchain-governance and https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/blockchain/articles/10.3389/fbloc.2021.577680/full Also the references to corporate law and Elinor Ostroms institutional designs are examples of bridging real world governance insights with on-chain governance. Examples of bespoke solutions are mainly Optimism Collective designed, Lido’s Dual Governance structure. An example of a rigid solution is the Hats protocol: as it is purely designed for hierarchical (corporate-like) governance spaces. Aragon OSx and Zodiac are examples of more modular and flexible solutions but that are limited in scope because they cannot (easily) deal with institutional relationships between stakeholder groups. assistant : Would you like to share another governance problem, or should we move on to exploring solutions and who's working on them? user : Let's explore solutions now. assistant : ### What approaches, tools, or mechanisms could address the governance problems we've discussed? Share any potential solutions you're aware of or have considered - these could be technical tools, process innovations, research directions, or organizational approaches. user : First general approach: 1) Governance architects need to take a step back and revisit what is actually specific about blockchains when it comes to human coordination. I think the current crisis shows that 'Decentralisation' is not it. 2) Try to see how lessons from real live can inform the design of on-chain governance that leverages the strengths of public distributed ledgers. These two steps are connected: you cannot know how to use lessons learned from governance IRL when you do not have a good sense of particularities of on-chain governance. In all this governance architects should draw on existing literature, but also talk to practitioners: people active in local football clubs to global artist networks, from corporations to non-profits. See what governance works and what does not in practice. assistant : ### Which teams, projects, or researchers do you know are actively working on these solutions or related governance innovations? This helps us map who's contributing to solving these challenges. user : I think MetaGov is one of the few organisations that does work more or less in this direction. But I don't think they are actually designing governance protocols. I know Optimism reached out to social and political scientists when designing their governance protocol - but they ended up with something rather bespoke. I honestly do not know anyone organisation that does this at the moment. It might be due to my own ignorance. assistant : Would you like to share more solutions or identify additional actors working in this space, or should we move to wrapping up? user : There need to be more governance protocols that revolve around managing powers in decision-making processes, rather than trying to ‘solve’ the problem of human coordination. Governance is not about solving objective bottlenecks to collective alignment, but about creating legitimacy for collective decisions. It is not about creating new types of incentive mechanisms to align individuals along a collective value, or identifying a signal among the noise. It is about getting stakeholders in a community to feel heard in decision-making processes; viewing an eventual collective decision as legitimate - even if they might disagree with it. This implies designing a governance protocol that allows communities to create their own roles with specialised rights and responsibilities, design some type of filters / throttles to avoid being overwhelmed by noise, and define how different roles check each others to ensure accountability. Create ways for communities to create their own governance structures that give legitimacy to the eventual decisions they take. assistant : ### Which teams, projects, or researchers do you know are actively working on these solutions or related governance innovations? This helps us map who's contributing to solving these challenges. user : Good news is that there are many protocols that are moving in this direction. See the previously mentioned ones: - Optimism's Bicameralism - Optimism's Optimistic decision making process, - Lido’s Dual Governance structure. - The Hats protocol, when it comes to delegating powers - Aragon OSx and Zodiac, separation of pwoers. - Kleros, when it comes to accountability / courts. But, as mentioned before, these are all bespoke solutions. We need a governance protocol that provides a simple but general framework for institutional governance design. The only one I know that does something close to this - apologies for the plug - is the Powers protocol. The protocol I work on. assistant : Would you like to share more solutions or identify additional actors working in this space, or should we move to wrapping up? user : No, this is it. Than you assistant : ### Thank you for mapping governance challenges and solutions Here's a summary of your contributions: **Problems Identified:** 1. **Centralization, opacity, and noise in DAO governance** - Small elite of delegates control votes, backdoor lobbying required for proposals, overwhelming amount of poorly informed input with inadequate filtering 2. **Lack of institutional governance structure** - No defined roles with designated rights/responsibilities, no proper mechanisms to elect or hold representatives accountable, resulting in constant referendum model that creates noise, slowness, opacity, and centralizes power among well-connected participants 3. **Fragmented technical solutions** - Existing governance protocols focus on specific technical issues (delegation, security, efficiency) rather than tackling the underlying structural problem holistically 4. **Limited application of real-world governance insights** - Growing scholarship connecting real-world governance to on-chain design, but resulting protocols remain bespoke, rigid, or limited in scope **Evidence Provided:** - Centralization of governance tokens among whales - Lack of token re-delegation across DAOs - Declining voter and forum participation - Academic studies: Cossar et al. (2024) on PoH DAO Crisis; Chabbani (2025) on Teia/Hicetnunc - Examples of single-issue solutions: Hats Protocol (delegation), Aragon OSx (modularity), Zodiac (treasury), Kleros (accountability) - Scholarship bridging real-world and on-chain governance (Policy Review article, Frontiers in Blockchain) - Bespoke implementations: Optimism Collective, Lido's Dual Governance - Rigid solutions: Hats Protocol (hierarchical only) - Limited scope: Aragon OSx and Zodiac (difficulty with inter-stakeholder relationships) **Solutions & Approaches:** 1. **Fundamental rethinking** - Governance architects need to revisit what's actually specific about blockchains for human coordination (not just "decentralization"), then apply real-world governance lessons that leverage blockchain strengths. Draw on existing literature AND talk to practitioners across diverse governance contexts (local clubs to global networks, corporations to nonprofits) 2. **Legitimacy-focused design** - Shift from "solving" coordination problems to creating legitimacy for collective decisions. Design protocols that allow communities to create their own roles with specialized rights/responsibilities, implement filters/throttles for noise management, and define accountability mechanisms between roles **Active Contributors:** - **MetaGov** - Working in this direction but not designing protocols directly - **Optimism** - Consulted social/political scientists; developed bicameralism and optimistic decision-making - **Lido** - Dual Governance structure - **Hats Protocol** - Delegating powers (hierarchical focus) - **Aragon OSx & Zodiac** - Separation of powers - **Kleros** - Accountability/courts - **Powers Protocol** - Your project working on general framework for institutional governance design Your input will be synthesized with other participants' contributions to help build the gov/acc research roadmap. This will inform the visualization and workshop at EthCC, where we'll work on coordinated solutions to these governance challenges. Does this summary capture your main points accurately, or would you like to clarify or add anything? user : I think this is really well done. Thank you assistant : Thank you for participating in phase 1 of gov/acc research, Participant 23! Your insights on the structural problems underlying DAO governance and the need for legitimacy-focused design that draws on real-world governance lessons will be valuable for building the research roadmap. Looking forward to seeing how these ideas contribute to the broader conversation at EthCC.