Blockchain Networks as Knowledge Commons

Abstract

Researchers interested in blockchains are increasingly attuned to questions of governance, including how blockchains relate to government, the ways blockchains are governed, and ways blockchains can improve prospects for successful self-governance. Our paper joins this research by exploring the implications of the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to analyze governance of blockchains. Our novel contributions are making the case that blockchain networks represent knowledge commons governance, in the sense that they rely on collectively-managed technologies to pool and manage distributed information, illustrating the usefulness and novelty of the GCK methodology with an empirical case study of the evolution of Bitcoin, and laying the foundation for a research program using the GKC approach.

Keywords: Blockchain, blockchain governance, Governing Knowledge Commons, polycentricity, Bitcoin, cryptocurrency