In Governance of Ecosystems, Dante Disparte, in his chapter The Association as a Guiding Model for Ecosystem Governance explains Diem’s initial rationale for choosing this particular legal structure to drive collaboration in an ecosystem, taking into account the different interests of the parties involved as well as regulatory requirements.

As organizations explore new ways to structure their collaboration models, Diem, which is committed to building a payments network, chose the association as the legal structure to bring together all parties that have chosen to participate in the initiative.