---
title: "Delegation and Unbundling in a Crypto-Democracy"
author: "Berg, C."
date: "2017-07-13"
url: "https://chrisberg.org/2017/07/delegation-and-unbundling-in-a-crypto-democracy/"
type: "Working papers"
published_in: "Working paper, SSRN"
doi: "10.2139/ssrn.3001585"
topics: "Blockchain governance, Democracy and elections, Institutional economics and public choice"
---

# Delegation and Unbundling in a Crypto-Democracy

**Abstract:** Representative democracy consists of a chain of delegation from voters to the executive and a corresponding chain of accountability, with some questions (particularly constitutional questions) reserved for popular vote. This structure reflects the high transaction costs of coordinating preferences among a large and diverse population, which has in part been determined by technological limitations. A new technology, blockchain, significantly reduces transaction costs. This technology turns out to have significant implications for democratic governance. In a crypto-democracy, voters have contractual relationships that allow them to unbundle, delegate, re-rebundle and reserve their voting power. Rather than planning our democratic structure and thus restricting opportunities for political exchange, the use of blockchain in a crypto-democracy allows us to ‘grow’ a democracy in a Hayekian framework.

[Working paper available at SSRN.](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3001585)