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In recent years, there has been growing policy support for expanding worker ownership of businesses in the European Union. Debates on stimulating worker ownership are a regular feature of discussions on the collaborative economy and the future of work, given anxieties regarding the reconfiguration of the nature of work and the decline of standardised employment contracts. Yet, worker ownership, in the form of labour-managed firms such as worker cooperatives, remains marginal. This article explains the appeal of worker cooperatives and examines the reasons why they continue to be relatively scarce. Taking its cue from Henry Hansmann's hypothesis that organisational innovations can make worker ownership of firms viable in previously untenable circumstances, this article explores how organisational innovations, such as those embodied in the capital and governance structure of Decentralised (Autonomous) Organisations (D(A)Os), can potentially facilitate the growth of LMFs. It does so by undertaking a case study of a blockchain project, Colony, which seeks to create decentralised, self-organising companies where decision-making power derives from highquality work. For worker cooperatives, seeking to connect globally dispersed workers through an online workplace, Colony's proposed capital and governance structure, based on technological and game theoretic insight may offer useful lessons. Drawing from this pre-figurative structure, selfimposed institutional rules may be deployed by worker cooperatives in their by-laws to avoid some of the main pitfalls associated with labour management and thereby, potentially, vitalise the formation of the cooperative form.

This is a draft version. For the final paper, refer to Reijers, W., Wuisman, I., Mannan, M. et al. Topoi (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007 2 according to a system of rules that have been encoded directly into the system that is responsible for enforcing them. Off-chain governance comprises all other (i.e. nonon-chain) rules and decision-making processes that might affect the operations and the future development of blockchain-based systems. Off-chain governance includes both endogenous and exogenous rules. The former category refers to the rules adopted by a reference community to ensure the proper functioning and ongoing development of a blockchain-based system (including procedures to implement protocol changes).The latter category includes all rules imposed by a third-party onto the reference community, e.g. national laws and regulations, contractual agreements, technology standards, and so forth 2 .The ongoing debate about on-chain and off-chain governance turns on the practical question of whether existing rules and decision-making processes governing a blockchain-based system should be changed from the inside or the outside by the reference community, and whether the system should provide for a mechanism to change the governance structure itself. This practical question leads to the more theoretical and normative question of whether an existing set of code-based rules could and should overtake the exercise of human judgment in decision-making, and what are the ethical and political considerations this would entail (De Filippi & Hassan 2018). Addressing these questions brings about a new legal discourse. In an earlier paper on blockchain technology, Reyes argues that distributed ledger technology (DLT), such as blockchain technology, "will change legal discourse about the fundamental elements of legal systems, including substantive law, legal structures, and legal culture" (Reyes 2017, p. 1).The new legal discourse, she claims, "will stand on its own as a new field of legal academic inquiry and area of legal practice" (ibid, p. 63). While this observation seems correct, blockchain technology also brings to the fore ideas that have long been subject to jurisprudential debate. This paper seeks to situate the blockchain discussion within the field of legal philosophy, examining how legal theory can apply in the context of blockchain governance. In doing so, it furthermore aims to connect analyses of the governance of financial technologies with the broader academic debate on philosophy of money and 2 Because of these specificities, most blockchain-based systems rely on off-chain governance only in exceptional situations when on-chain governance fails or is unable to process a certain decision-for example, when a protocol change is required to improve a network's functionalities or fix technical issues that would otherwise place the whole network in jeopardy.

Network effects, economies of scale, and lock-in-effects increasingly lead to a concentration of digital resources and capabilities, hindering the free and equitable development of digital entrepreneurship, new skills, and jobs, especially in small communities and their small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”). To ensure the affordability and accessibility of technologies, promote digital entrepreneurship and community well-being, and protect digital rights, we propose data cooperatives as a vehicle for secure, trusted, and sovereign data exchange. In post-pandemic times, community/SME-led cooperatives can play a vital role by ensuring that supply chains to support digital commons are uninterrupted, resilient, and decentralized. Digital commons and data sovereignty provide communities with affordable and easy access to information and the ability to collectively negotiate data-related decisions. Moreover, cooperative commons (a) provide access to the infrastructure that underpins the modern economy, (b) preserve property rights, and (c) ensure that privatization and monopolization do not further erode self-determination, especially in a world increasingly mediated by AI. Thus, governance plays a significant role in accelerating communities’/SMEs’ digital transformation and addressing their challenges. Cooperatives thrive on digital governance and standards such as open trusted application programming interfaces (“APIs”) that increase the efficiency, technological capabilities, and capacities of participants and, most importantly, integrate, enable, and accelerate the digital transformation of SMEs in the overall process. This review article analyses an array of transformative use cases that underline the potential of cooperative data governance. These case studies exemplify how data and platform cooperatives, through their innovative value creation mechanisms, can elevate digital commons and value chains to a new dimension of collaboration, thereby addressing pressing societal issues. Guided by our research aim, we propose a policy framework that supports the practical implementation of digital federation platforms and data cooperatives. This policy blueprint intends to facilitate sustainable development in both the Global South and North, fostering equitable and inclusive data governance strategies.