Principle 8 of 10
On-Chain Governance
Protocol upgrades must be encoded in the state machine, not decided by social convention.
Bitcoin has no formal governance mechanism. Protocol changes require a social process — BIP authorship, developer discussion, miner signalling — that in practice concentrates upgrade authority in a small group of core developers and large mining operations. The blocksize wars of 2017 demonstrated both the dysfunction of this model and its susceptibility to well-funded lobbying.
Scoring Rubric
| Score | Criteria |
|---|---|
| 7–10 | All parameter changes executed on-chain by governance vote; quadratic or anti-plutocratic weighting; upgrade path encoded in state machine. |
| 4–6 | On-chain signalling with off-chain execution; or simple token-weighted voting. |
| 0–3 | Governance by social convention; or foundation multisig controls upgrade path. |
Data Sources
- On-chain governance activity
- Upgrade history
- Multisig composition
- Foundation charter review