Challenges of DLT-Enabled Scalable Governance and the Role of Standards

Abstract

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and its blockchain subclass are emerging as a disruptive innovation with an expanding range of potential applications. While DLT systems promise significant benefits to participants and diverse industries, their use of cryptography and incentive models to displace intermediaries and central authorities present significant challenges to conventional models of institutionally-oriented governance. This is due to the disintermediation of such governance bodies displacing the accountabilities and decision rights such parties typically provide. This paper addresses the emerging research question of how standards can address the assurances lost by the displacement of conventional institutional governance mechanisms in DLT systems.