Morshed Mannan

Legal researcher and co-author of Blockchain Governance (MIT Press, 2024) alongside Primavera De Filippi and Wouter Reijers. Also co-author of “The Alegality of Blockchain Technology” (Policy and Society, 2022). His research addresses the legal and regulatory dimensions of decentralized organizations, particularly the gap between blockchain-based governance and existing state law.

In the episode on functional sovereignty, Mannan brings legal precision to the question of how Network Nations can exercise meaningful autonomy within — and alongside — existing legal frameworks. His work on “alegality” — the idea that blockchain-based systems operate neither legally nor illegally, but in a space the law has not yet reached — is particularly relevant to the concept of functional sovereignty as operational freedom.

Appears in: Ep 8: Functional Sovereignty