Programme
Overview and Workshop Format
Decentralisation is a foundational goal of blockchain systems, yet it remains contested, hard to define, and even harder to measure. The 1st Workshop on Decentralisation: Theory and Practice (DeTaP) brings together researchers from cryptography, distributed systems, economics, law, and beyond to examine decentralisation as a concept and a design goal - how to define it, how to measure it, how it interacts with law and policy, and how it compares to decentralisation in other fields.
DeTaP is a single-day workshop held in association with AFT 2026. The programme will feature a mix of invited and contributed talks, together with dedicated time for open discussion among participants. Our aim is to bring together a cross-disciplinary group and to make space for the kind of open, foundational discussion that decentralisation as a topic invites.
Call for Abstracts
We invite submissions to the 1st Workshop on Decentralisation: Theory and Practice (DeTaP), to be held in association with Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT) 2026.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Definitions and conceptualisations of decentralisation
- Methods for measuring decentralisation
- Critiques and limitations of existing measurement frameworks
- Empirical studies of decentralisation in deployed systems
- Decentralisation of blockchain governance
- Legal tests for decentralisation and their relationship to technical definitions
- Liability and accountability in decentralised systems
- Optimal or “sufficient” degrees of decentralisation
- Trade-offs between decentralisation and other system properties (e.g. efficiency, scalability, accountability)
- Decentralisation of blockchain hardware and infrastructure
- Case studies of endogenous and exogenous events shaping decentralisation
- Causal analysis: drivers of decentralisation and centralisation pressures
- Normative arguments for or against decentralisation
- Decentralisation in other fields vs. blockchain-specific framing
- Historical and non-blockchain case studies of decentralised systems, successful or unsuccessful
Submissions require only a title and abstract describing the proposed talk. Authors may optionally submit a full or short paper alongside the abstract.
The workshop has no proceedings and is intended as a venue for exchanging ideas, therefore work in progress and work that has been published at or submitted to another venue is equally welcome.
Accepted papers may optionally be made available on the workshop's website at the authors' discretion.
Submissions should be made via this form.
Important Dates
| Submission deadline | |
| Author notification | |
| Workshop date | 6 October 2026 |
Location
The workshop will take place on 6 October 2026 in London, UK, at Space House, 1 Kemble St, London WC2B 4AN, just a short walk away from the AFT venue.
Approved participants will be notified about the room details.
Registration
The workshop is free to attend, but registration is required so that we can keep track of numbers. We hope to accommodate everyone who wishes to attend, but spaces are limited, so early registration is encouraged.
Register here.
Organisers
- Christina Ovezik, University of Edinburgh christina.ovezik@ed.ac.uk
- Mojtaba Tefagh, University of Edinburgh m.tefagh@ed.ac.uk