The BlockchainGov Newsletter #30 | February 2025
Welcome to this month's newsletter! February brought two major research publications, a new podcast episode, and a feature in the Edge City Zine. We've also put together a roundup of calls for papers, and give you an update on what's coming up in March.
Catch up with us:
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I. Highlights
Argentina Onchain Featured in the Edge City Zine
In february, an Edge City Zine was released - 95 pages of community-made stories, insights, and reflections from the month we spent together in the Andes, released on Punto Press. It’s a beautiful snapshot of the socio-political experiment that is Edge City (which recently caught the attention of the New York Times). And Argentina Onchain is featured alongside projects like Regen House, Agartha House, and the dAcc Residency.
While on the topic of Argentina Onchain - our full report is now in its final review and will be out very soon. We are excited to share it with all of you.
In the meantime: Read the zine →
UNCITRAL Colloquium on Digital Payments and Paperless Trade
Vashti Maharaj participated as a panellist at the UNCITRAL Colloquium in Vienna, contributing to the discussion on regional experiences in establishing enabling legal frameworks for paperless trade. The panel explored how legal harmonization across regions — from the Commonwealth to ASEAN to the EU — can unlock significant efficiency gains in digital trade. Key themes included the role of UNCITRAL Model Laws as a shared legal baseline, the importance of phased and pragmatic implementation, and the need for interoperable frameworks that bridge digital payments and paperless trade into seamless end-to-end systems.
More details →
II. Network Nations Podcast Episode
Mid february, Episode 15: Catalysing Network Nations — Movement Building with Benjamin Life & Patricia Parkinson was released, in which Primavera De Filippi is joined by Patricia Parkinson and Benjamin Life of the OpenCivics Project to answer one of the most important questions: how do Network Nations move from conceptual framework to real political movement? The conversation covers what it takes to bridge ideas and action - building a shared theory of change, nurturing collective genius (”scenius”) before formalizing institutions, and balancing commons-based governance with movement leadership. They explore functional sovereignty, dual power strategies, progressive protocolization, and how to grow a pluralistic movement capable of real-world impact without falling into the traps of co-optation, extraction, or techno-elitism. A foundational episode on how communities can coordinate without losing their soul.
III. Research Highlights
This month, we have two big research highlights:
The Fiduciary Duties of Network Participants of Blockchain Systems” — In their chapter in Oxford University Press’s Foundations of Decentralized Organizations, Morshed Mannan and Primavera De Filippi ask whether blockchain developers should owe fiduciary duties to users. As DAOs mature and draw increasing regulatory attention, there is growing pressure to extend traditional trust-based obligations to developers and network participants. Mannan and De Filippi argue against. Their case rests on regulatory equivalence: blockchain’s native transparency and governance mechanisms can deliver functionally equivalent protections without retrofitting legal frameworks designed for intermediary-based systems. Imposing default fiduciary duties, they argue, risks constraining innovation and fundamentally misreading how decentralized systems operate.
Another one to dive into the rabbithole of regulatory equivalence.
Read it here →
“A Workers’ Inquiry in Decentralised Autonomous Organisations” — This study by Tara Merk, Morshed Mannan, Nick Houde and Laura Lotti offers the first comprehensive empirical account of working conditions in DAOs(very exciting!!). Drawing on ethnographic research with 38 contributors, the authors find that while many imagine DAOs as cooperative alternatives to traditional firms, token governance in practice can tend to replicate shareholder capitalism - actually incentivizing self-exploitation under the banner of decentralization. The study identifies three areas where DAO labour falls short of its solidarity economy promise: psychosocial security, financial predictability, and regulatory clarity. Their proposed intervention: “interfaces” — institutional bridges connecting DAO participants to existing social protections and public infrastructure.
IV. Call for Papers: a selection.
There are many opportunities in the realm of decentralized governance & the world of web3 for all the geeks who make the world go around, here is a selection of interesting possibilities we put together for you:
Researchers working on blockchain, DeFi, DAOs, tokenization, or decentralized governance systems are invited to submit to the Decentralized Digital Economies Minitrack at HICSS 60, taking place January 5–8, 2027 at Hilton Waikoloa Village. The minitrack welcomes rigorous work at the intersection of technology, economics, and governance — spanning smart contracts, stablecoins, DAO design, cross-chain interoperability, regulation, and Web3/AI convergence. Technical, economic, organizational, and policy perspectives are all in scope. 🔗 Learn more and submit →
Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences — Special issue on blockchain-based operating systems and AI-enabled complexity management in organizations. Covers DAOs, platforms, fintech, and digital ecosystems. Accepts theoretical, empirical, and methodological papers. Deadline: November 15, 2026. More info →
Blockchain in Healthcare Today — Open-access journal accepting rolling submissions on distributed ledger technology, AI, and healthcare transformation. Accepts original research, reviews, and multilingual submissions, with low APCs and waivers for failed experiments or editorials. More info →
SBC 2026 (Science of Blockchain Conference) — Focuses on technical blockchain innovations with explicit DAO governance tracks and interdisciplinary work. Includes a dedicated DAO Workshop on July 30. Accepts talk submissions. July 27–29, location TBD. Talk submission deadline: March 13, 2026. More info →
BRAINS 2026 (8th Conference on Blockchain Research & Applications for Innovative Networks and Services) — Features a dedicated DeFi track covering blockchain protocols, smart contracts, crypto-economics, financial innovation, and agentic AI. October 13–16, deadline expected mid-2026. Monitor for updates →
V. Coming Up
Parallel Society (March 6–7, Lisbon)
BlockchainGov’s Tara Merk is participating in Parallel Society — a two-day counterculture unconference in Lisbon organized under the Logos umbrella. Tracks span FOSS, decentralized governance, privacy tech, parallel economies, and culture. More info →
DC Blockchain Summit (March 17–18, Washington DC) Heavy on policy and regulation, expect debates on U.S. crypto frameworks, digital dollar pilots, and how blockchain enables self-sovereign communities. More info →
Next Block Expo (March 24–25, Warsaw) Europe’s big Web3 hub, with sessions on DAOs, parallel societies via blockchain, and cross-chain governance models. Official site: More info →
Digital Asset Summit (March 24–26, New York) Institutional focus on Real World Assets (RWAs), exploring tokenized economies as alternatives to centralized finance. More info→
EthCC[9] (March 30–April 2, Cannes) Deep dives into Ethereum upgrades, Web3 governance tools, and decentralized social structures — one for the parallel society builders. More info→
That’s all from this month’s newsletter, thank you for reading and see you next month!
/ The BlockchainGov Team
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