Blockchain Governance Has Limits – And That’s Fine
Unpacking "Farewell to Westphalia" by Jarrad Hope and Peter Ludlow
As you probably guessed, Farewell to Westphalia focuses primarily on the promise of blockchain-based governance: how introducing competition to governance can realise trillions of dollars currently lost to inefficiency and corruption, and how such a system encourages cooperation among communities rather than conflict.
But no system is perfect, and no technology escapes the realities of the human condition. Therefore, in Chapter 15 of the book, Peter Ludlow and Jarrad Hope examine the conceptual limits of blockchain governance.
The idea of “trustless” systems is highly appealing to many. But as The DAO hack and Ethereum’s subsequent hard fork in 2016 showed, trust never really disappears – it just shifts. Instead of trusting centralised institutions, we place trust in developers, validators, oracles, and community consensus. In a decentralised system, trust is still required. It just takes a different shape.
The authors also explore questions of decentralisation itself. Can any network be truly flat and resilient? Not really. Some concentration – whether technical, social, or economic – emerges naturally, even in blockchain-based systems. That’s not necessarily a flaw, but it’s something we need to acknowledge and account for.
Then there’s the matter of oracles – those bridges between the digital and physical world. Blockchain can enforce rules flawlessly, but only based on the data it’s given. Ensuring that data is accurate remains a very human challenge.
These aren’t reasons to dismiss blockchain governance; they are reasons to design it thoughtfully. As Jarrad and Peter argue in Farewell to Westphalia, the path forward isn’t about creating perfect systems; it’s about building better ones, with clearer incentives, greater transparency, and fewer single points of failure.
Stay tuned for more insights from the work of two of the foremost minds on the frontier of post-state governance.