On decentralised governance : investigation and comparison of decentralised governance in mainstream virtual worlds

Abstract

Research Purpose: The aim of this research is to study virtual world decentralised governance implementations, using Decentraland as a case study, to assess whether we can build upon recent blockchain-based Ostromian governance theory to establish a common set of decentralised governance requirements for DLT-based virtual world communities. Research Methodology: The research was supported by interview-based data collection among several Governance Experts and Virtual World Experts, as core primary data points to respond to the research questions taken for this research. General Findings: The evaluation of Decentraland decentralised governance practices, and the rich feedback supplied by the experts enabled a comparison with the selected Ostrom-Blockchain aspects for online community governance. While providing commentary on novel additional requirements catered to decentralised governance, the overwhelming findings affirmed the current set of Ostrom requirements as relevant and applicable to the Decentraland virtual world community, taken as a case study for this paper.