The exchange theory of web3 governance
借鉴公共选择理论中的“交换观”，提出理解Web3治理创新的新理论框架，并通过三个案例（Curve、Lido、Metagov）展示其如何揭示价值，对研究去中心化治理的学者有参考价值。
Abstract Blockchains have enabled innovation in distributed economic institutions, such as money (e.g., cryptocurrencies) and markets (e.g., decentralised exchanges), but also innovations in distributed governance, such as decentralised autonomous organisations. These innovations have generated academic interest in studying web3 governance, but as yet there is no general theory of web3 governance. In this paper, we draw on the contrast between a ‘romantic view’ of governance (characterised by consensus through community voting) and the ‘exchange view’ of governance from public choice theory (characterised by an entrepreneurial process of bargaining and exchange of voters under uncertainty). Our analysis is the first to argue that the latter ‘exchange view’ of governance is best to understand the dynamics of governance innovation in web3, providing the foundations for a new general theory of governance in this frontier field. We apply the ‘exchange view’ of governance to three case studies (Curve, Lido and Metagov), exploring how these projects enable pseudonymous, composable and permissionless governance processes to reveal value. Our approach helps illuminate how this emergent polycentric governance process can generate robustness in decentralised systems.