The ability to invent and use tools is a defining attribute of Homo sapiens that led to the emergence of civilization. An important concept for framing the subsequent effects of technology on society is automation: any technique that reduces the need for human assistance in performing a task or completing a process. The connection between automation and progress is well understood. Although formulated in a different context, a quote from more than a century ago by the philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead sums it up nicely: “Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.”

Based on my research over the past couple of years, I’ve put together a list of ten theses on decentralized network governance, including base layer public blockchain networks and applications (smart contracts) running on top of them. The ten ideas are listed from the more general and theoretical (descriptive) to the more specific and practical (prescriptive). The first five are revised summaries of my previous writing; the latter five are derived from more recent observations.

The principles of free and open source software (FOSS) are fundamental to the ethos of the communities building blockchain networks. While it is not uncommon for a single organization or small group of core developers to coordinate and deliver most of the work, the source code is generally open for everyone to inspect and improve upon. Control is maintained not by keeping software proprietary, but through social and institutional means, including ideological discourse, community management, and trademark license agreements. Despite the unique governance challenges from issuing network-specific assets to operators, investors, users, or other stakeholders, there are important similarities between blockchain networks and traditional FOSS projects. Existing research on FOSS governance may therefore prove helpful in designing blockchain governance systems.

Blockchain enthusiasts often criticize traditional institutions for their tendency to concentrate resources and decision-making authority. But token-weighted governance without system design features that counteract centralization are clearly open to similar criticisms. As a result, large token holders are faced with a dilemma: abstain from participation to stay true to the ethos of decentralization, or seek to govern in a way that doesn’t disproportionately benefit powerful actors at the expense of other stakeholders.

This article is a comment on Lane Rettig’s essay Autonocrats and Anthropocrats, connecting its central themes to two fundamental concepts in social sciences — the rule of law and social structure. It explains how the most informative analogue to a decentralized network of nodes running autonomous software is society itself. Digital record-keeping and distributed computer networks are comparable to other institutions with effects beyond the control of their creators, administrators, and users. As such, they represent an important area of research not only for computer scientists and software engineers but also for social and political theorists whose expertise could be usefully applied to the design and governance of these emerging systems.