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a16z Embraces Simplicity in Decentralized Governance Approach

2 mins
Updated by Ciaran Lyons
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In Brief

  • Jennings emphasizes Machiavellian principles for robust, minimizing decentralized governance for simplicity.
  • Jennings advocates for a balanced leadership group, open to challenges, with a framework for leadership rotation.
  • Stakeholders, with vested interests in protocol governance, should act as a check on power, for protocol survival.
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Miles Jennings, the head of decentralization at venture capital firm a16z, sees the application of Machiavellian principles to decentralized governance in Web3 as a potential solution to address its current limitations.

“Web3 should triumph over web2 because web3 enables decentralization; decentralization reduces censorship and promotes liberty,” Jennings noted.

Utilizing Machiavellian Principles in Decentralized Governance

Jennings outlines the Machiavellian principles as guidelines for designing more robust and effective decentralized governance.

In a recent report, he delivers a comprehensive explanation of the concepts, with the first highlighting the significance of reducing governance.

The second idea involves the creation of a well-balanced leadership group that remains open to constant challenges and opposition. Additionally, it aims to establish a framework for the ongoing rotation of leadership and enhance the overall transparency and responsibility within this leadership cohort.

He clarified that the principle behind governance minimization is to keep it as straightforward as possible:

“DAOs can take advantage of the incentivized decentralization model to combat such trends and drive further governance minimization.”

Striving for Balance in Governance Structure

Jennings also notes that the governance should be delegated.

He believes that token holders should act as a check on the power of the stakeholders.

“Because the livelihood of the stakeholders is ultimately dependent on the protocol, they are much more likely to take the governance of the protocol seriously than good actors who are simply participating in decentralized governance out of a spirit of civic duty.”

Example Governance System. Source: a16z

He provides an example of how a governance structure might take shape.

This example clarifies that the stakeholder council could consist of the following groups: the operators of the four highest transaction volume clients, the creators of the four leading third-party products and services, and the top four sellers.

He further argues that the leadership class divides and organizes their voting power into three separate series. Each will be aligned with specific constituencies. The leadership class collectively exercises their voting authority as a unified council.

Angie Malltezi, CSO of Web3 startup Shipyard Software, emphasized to BeInCrypto on August 29 that regulation poses a significant obstacle for DAOs.

She underscores the difficulty in ascertaining a DAO’s location, intentions, and its operational behavior as some of the foremost challenges.

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Ciaran Lyons
Ciaran is a cryptocurrency journalist based in Sydney, Australia. He particularly enjoys writing about CBDC developments and the practical implementations of cryptocurrency in real-world scenarios. He has also appeared across major television networks in Australia including Channel Ten, Channel Nine and SBS TV. Prior to his foray into cryptocurrency, Ciaran worked as a presenter on national radio station Triple J.
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