  Blockchain eliminates the need for trusted third-party intermediaries in
business by enabling decentralised architecture design in software
applications. However, the vulnerabilities in on-chain autonomous
decision-makings and cumbersome off-chain coordination lead to serious concerns
about blockchain's ability to behave in a trustworthy and efficient way.
Blockchain governance has received considerable attention to support the
decision-making process during the use and evolution of blockchain.
Nevertheless, the conventional governance frameworks do not apply to blockchain
due to its distributed architecture and decentralised decision process. These
inherent features lead to the absence of a clear source of authority in
blockchain ecosystem. Currently, there is a lack of systematic guidance on the
governance of blockchain. Therefore, in this paper, we present a comprehensive
blockchain governance framework, which elucidates an integrated view of the
degree of decentralisation, decision rights, incentives, accountability,
ecosystem, and legal and ethical responsibilities. The above aspects are
formulated as six high-level principles for blockchain governance. We
demonstrate a qualitative analysis of the proposed framework, including case
studies on five extant blockchain platforms, and comparison with existing
blockchain governance frameworks. The results show that our proposed framework
is feasible and applicable in a real-world context.
