Governance Geometry in Web3: The Vessel Compartment System as a Constitutional Ownership Framework

Abstract

Abstract Web3 infrastructure has demonstrated that decentralized coordination is technically feasible. Yet the dominant governance model — token-weighted voting — produces structural concentration of decision-making authority over time, and has not proved well-suited to real-world economic coordination. This paper argues that the missing element is constitutional ownership geometry: a structural arrangement of bounded roles and non-dilutable stakeholder balance that persists as participation evolves. We introduce the Vessel Compartment System (VCS), developed within the Mycelia Inclusive Networks (MIN) framework, as one such approach. VCS distributes governance authority across fixed ownership compartments representing distinct stakeholder roles — community participants, operators, capital providers, and ecosystem partners — each non-dilutable relative to the others. Participants within compartments may change; the balance among compartments does not. Web3 infrastructure provides the enforcement and portability layer this model requires: smart contracts encode compartment boundaries, tokenized roles enable exit without requiring dissolution of institutional structure, and composable systems support cross-vessel coordination. Together, these features allow governance to remain internally stable while evolving externally through participant migration across structurally stable governance units. The paper situates VCS within established governance theory, contrasts it with token-weighted and procedural governance models, and examines its implications for real-world economic coordination and Web3 system design. Keywords: Web3 governance, token-weighted voting, decentralized autonomous organizations, ownership geometry, Vessel Compartment System, constitutional governance, exit-driven evolution, real-world economic coordination, multi-stakeholder governance