Execution Governance for Web3

Abstract

This white paper proposes a structural architecture for Execution Governance (EG) in Web3, including DAOs and DeFi protocols. It addresses a critical governance gap in decentralized systems: the implicit conflation of governance approval with execution authority, where the ability of a proposal to pass a vote is often treated as sufficient authority for irreversible on-chain effect. Aligned with EG 2.0 v1.4 and EG 2.1, the paper introduces a dedicated, non-bypassable execution boundary between governance intent and on-chain execution. It formalizes authority-anchored admissibility, continuity preservation from proposal to transaction finality, continuity verification for valid-looking drift, and commit semantics that guarantee no committed effect on the governed execution target upon governance failure. The paper also provides a conformance framework, maturity model, governance failure model, and illustrative Web3 scenarios covering treasury controls, oracle drift, sanctions conflict resolution, and emergency governance. It is presented as a conceptual architecture proposal intended to support scholarly discussion and future implementation work on accountable, verifiable, and resilient decentralized autonomous systems.