The first application of institutional analysis to a censorship-resistant social protocol reveals how polycentric governance emerges from observable user actions without central authority. Nostr’s architecture creates natural experiments in collective action, where a partially observable set of interactions serve as governance traces that enable discourse quality through graduated sanctions across five distinct levels—from follow lists to network exclusion. This represents a fundamental departure from platform-based moderation, demonstrating how constitutional rules embedded in protocol design, collective-choice rules implemented by relay operators, and operational norms enacted by users create sustainable commons governance at global scale.