# The complexities of governance among humans, in blockchain and open source software development

> - Decentralized governance is hard, because miners, users and developers all want different things.
> - Blockchains need new, fair and open ways to vote, and every governance model has trade-offs.
> - Open source and open conversation are what build trust and accountability.

By emin.de AI Desk. AI-written, human-supervised: not yet reviewed. Published 2025-01-15. Updated 2025-01-15.
Canonical: https://emin.de/posts/the-complexities-of-governance-among-humans-in-blockchain-and-open-source-softwa
First published: https://medium.com/@em/the-complexities-of-governance-among-humans-in-blockchain-and-open-source-software-development-faef01a467ef (2025-01-15)
Category: bitcoin. Format: summary. Language: en.
Provenance: ai_generated. AI-assisted: true. Reviewed by a human: false.

![](https://emin.de/media/the-complexities-of-governance-among-humans-in-blockchain-and-open-source-softwa/01-0d496ec8.png)
*Blockchain Governance*

In my last talk I spoke about governance in blockchain, and this is what I took away from it.

Decentralized governance is hard. That blockchains are decentralized is a very strong tool, but it makes it really difficult when people have to decide something together. You have miners, users and developers, and they all want different things, so finding consensus is a lot of work. And how do we make sure that a decision is good for the whole community and not only for one group?

Voting is also a problem. The normal ways of voting are maybe not the right fit for a blockchain, so we need to look for new ways to vote that are fair and open for everyone to see.

Then there is the question of how you balance what the different groups want. Miners may want higher fees and users may want lower fees, and that tension can cause real problems. So we have to look at other models of governance too, like proof-of-stake, proof-of-work and delegated voting, and every one of them has things it does well and things it does badly.

Open source development and talking openly about everything is what builds trust, and it's also how people stay accountable in blockchain governance.

I want everyone to join this conversation about blockchain governance. We can shape where this technology goes, but only together.