In July 2019, we hosted a meeting in San Francisco of international experts on governance, including representatives of major public and permissioned blockchain projects, economic and legal scholars, lawyers, and internet governance analysts. The goal was to begin the process of developing common frameworks and principles for effective blockchain governance.

One conclusion that emerged from was that there is no detailed information about the governance practices of blockchain networks, applications, and consortia. This makes it difficult to evaluate the governance of existing systems, forces developers of new systems to rely on incomplete information, and makes it almost impossible to compare governance across projects. An assessment tool in a standard format would provide valuable information for both practitioners and researchers.