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WEF Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Beyond The Hype 2022
WEF Decentralized Autonomous Organizations Beyond The Hype 2022
Decentralized Autonomous
Organizations: Beyond the Hype
WHITE PAPER
JUNE 2022
Images: Getty Images
Contents
Foreword 3
Executive summary 4
Introduction 5
1 What is a DAO? 6
2 Practical elements 10
3 Categories of DAOs 12
Conclusion 19
Contributors 20
Endnotes 21
Disclaimer
This document is published by the
World Economic Forum as a contribution
to a project, insight area or interaction.
The findings, interpretations and
conclusions expressed herein are a result
of a collaborative process facilitated and
endorsed by the World Economic Forum
but whose results do not necessarily
represent the views of the World Economic
Forum, nor the entirety of its Members,
Partners or other stakeholders.
Foreword
Kevin Werbach
Aiden Slavin Professor of Legal Studies and
Project Lead, Crypto Impact Business Ethics and Director,
and Sustainability Accelerator, Blockchain and Digital Asset
World Economic Forum, USA Project, Wharton School,
University of Pennsylvania, USA
Innovation has always driven organizational including prosocial ends. Likewise, DAOs have
coordination. From the rise of the joint-stock the potential to realize gains in transparency,
company in the seventeenth century, the accountability and more relative to traditional
development of limited liability in the nineteenth organizational structures, including corporations.
and the proliferation of the internet in the twentieth, Yet practical challenges of governance,
novel structures and technologies have, throughout cybersecurity and power concentration, combined
history, profoundly altered the way humanity with regulatory uncertainty and fragmentation,
organizes work. Today, blockchains, digital assets could lead to further hacks, privacy issues and
and related technologies are changing human inequality.
coordination at a quicker rate than before, creating
both opportunities and challenges. Since DAO innovation is evolving rapidly and is
primarily led by the private sector, it is vital for
Worldwide, entrepreneurs are hitching the power policy-makers and regulators to stay engaged.
of distributed ledger technology to a new form Harnessing technologies for effective coordination
of coordination, decentralized autonomous requires more than just innovation. For DAOs to
organizations (DAOs), to deploy resources, realize their full potential, recent innovations must
coordinate activities and make decisions be combined with evidence-based, fit-for-purpose
communally. By empowering members to propose, policy and governance informed by public-private
vote on and effect changes to an entity, DAOs collaboration focused on ensuring that DAOs are
enable communities to work collectively towards developed and managed in a manner beneficial to
achieving shared goals, often without top-down, society at large.
hierarchal management.
This joint World Economic Forum and Wharton
Although centralized governance has made School of the University of Pennsylvania publication
possible the creation of some of the most powerful aims to shed light on this topic, offering a
enterprises in history, centralization comes at a foundation for policy-makers, regulators and
cost. With a small minority in charge, centralized senior business leaders to understand the DAO
entities tend to make decisions opaquely and ecosystem. Forthcoming publications from this
concentrate power at the top. The overheads collaboration will provide policy frameworks for
of centralized management can be significant. evaluating DAOs, principles-based approaches
Moreover, centralized organizations may for governing DAOs and reflections on early
overemphasize narrow goals at the expense of experiments in leveraging DAOs for social impact.
broader societal considerations.
Throughout history, any tool that meaningfully
By contrast, DAOs aspire to operate without improved organizational coordination eventually
conventional centralized intermediaries or became widespread, sparking dramatic economic
institutional structures. DAOs may offer a way to and social changes. Only time will tell whether
democratize the management of organizations DAOs will join this list. It is our hope that this report
and direct effort towards a wide variety of goals, helps realize the benefits of this emerging form.
The Wharton Blockchain and Digital Asset Project (BDAP) is a research initiative at the Wharton
School of the University of Pennsylvania focused on the evolving blockchain phenomenon. Drawing on
the world-class Wharton/Penn faculty, alumni and students, as well as relationships with officials and
industry experts from around the world, BDAP seeks to enhance understanding and bridge gaps among
stakeholder communities.
The Crypto Impact and Sustainability Accelerator is a project of the World Economic Forum that seeks
to catalyse progress on environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets for the crypto ecosystem.
Building upon the work of the Forum’s Blockchain and Digital Assets Platform and a global network of
contributors, the initiative explores emerging topics, such as DAOs, to bridge gaps in understanding
between the public and private sectors, drive efforts across the space and shape a cohesive narrative that
highlights how crypto can lead in contributions to ESG in web3 and beyond.
The DAO Coined in the 1990s by the German computer participants with governance tokens. The growth
ecosystem scientist Werner Dilger, the term “DAO” was taken of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) further expanded the
accelerated up two decades later by blockchain enthusiasts and DAO landscape as groups built NFT collections.
in 2020 as developers, most notably Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin, Most recently, DAOs for rapid single-purpose
who began theorizing in 2014 about DAOs as capital allocation have attracted significant interest.
decentralized
entities featuring “automation at the centre, humans ConstitutionDAO was able to raise approximately
finance (DeFi)
at the edges”.17 Blockchain-based DAOs take $47 million over a few days to bid on a copy of the
platforms took off advantage of smart contracts, which can immutably US Constitution, and AssangeDAO amassed more
and incorporated execute software code on a blockchain network. than $50 million in a matter of weeks.23
DAOs, awarding
early participants The first functional entity denominated as a DAO, Today, DAOs leverage a wide variety of voting
with governance The DAO, was created in 2016. The DAO raised methods and experiment with different forms of
tokens. roughly $150 million in ether in a matter of weeks representation. Some DAOs operate on a “one token,
to create a platform for collective investment in one vote” basis, whereby some if not all collective
blockchain-based projects.18 Shortly afterwards, decisions are made through a direct participatory
a bug in The DAO’s smart contract code was system. Some DAOs support the delegation of
exploited to siphon off a considerable amount of voting or proposal power to other individuals through
the committed digital assets.19 Given the immutable a representative system. Many DAOs increasingly
nature of Ethereum smart contracts, no one had provide greater voting power to individuals who “lock
the power to return the funds. The end result was up” or stake their tokens in an escrow smart contract
a contentious and disruptive hard fork, or radical for a fixed amount of time. Others use weighted voting
change, of the entire Ethereum blockchain.20 to provide greater power to individuals with greater
investment. While some of these governance models
Seeking to avoid a repeat of this fiasco, innovators result in broad representation through collective
developed improved DAO tooling and supporting decision-making, others risk recreating quasi-
infrastructure. Platforms for creating DAOs, oligarchic dynamics by concentrating governance
solutions for facilitating voting and security protocols tokens in the hands of a small number of powerful
for auditing code were established, and these players like venture capitalists and early insiders.
innovations were iterated upon.21 Experimental Although some DAOs are attempting to mitigate the
use cases such as collective grants for Ethereum risk of co-optation through delegation efforts, the
developers provided real-world experience with DAO challenges of power concentration remain.24 Many
governance.22 The DAO ecosystem accelerated DAOs adopt a goal of “progressive decentralization”,25
in 2020 as decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms building out structures for participation and moving
took off and incorporated DAOs, awarding early greater control to token holders over time.26
ConstitutionDAO was formed in In the end, the DAO failed in its bid. The
November 2021 to acquire one of the 13 artefact was sold for $43.2 million, and
remaining original printed copies of the ContitutionDAO was ultimately limited by
US Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction. It raised Sotheby’s to $43 million to factor in taxes
$47 million worth of ether from 17,437 contributors and the costs required to protect, insure and
in under a week. In return for providing ether, move the Constitution. There was a period of
contributors to the DAO received the $PEOPLE uncertainty afterwards, but the DAO ultimately
token, representing a share of the ConstitutionDAO. offered full refunds to its community minus
$PEOPLE token holders would be given the right to transaction fees. Although some argued
vote on what to do with the copy of the Constitution the funds collected should be applied to
and what the organization should do in the future. other objectives, the project was eventually
closed by the founding team. Several other
ConstitutionDAO did not have a long-term roadmap. community-based DAOs have sprung up
Individuals who contributed financially were so claiming to use the $PEOPLE token as their
aligned with the purpose, and motivated by the project’s native token.
community, that they simply wanted to contribute
and spread the word. At the time, Sotheby’s did As this case study illustrates, DAOs can enable
not allow DAOs to bid directly, nor did the auction communities to quickly mobilize to achieve
house accept anything other than government- a specific aim. While ConstitutionDAO was
issued currencies. ConstitutionDAO teamed up with focused on purchasing an artefact, future ad
a crypto exchange to convert its ether to dollars, hoc DAOs could coordinate to pursue a wide
as well as with Endaoment, a non-profit, to make variety of aims, including supporting a political
bids on the DAO’s behalf. The group also formed a campaign or purchasing a stake in another
corporation to help facilitate the transfer. entity in order to determine its strategy.
Although it is still early in their development, Further, the lack of DAO contributor information
some key strengths and weaknesses of DAOs or reputable on-chain credentialling can create
are already becoming evident. Relative to issues of accountability. Information asymmetries
corporations and other traditional organizational between creators and contributors can open the
forms, DAOs may achieve greater transparency, door to fraud and manipulation and make legal
trust, adaptability and speed. All token holders in recourse challenging.31 DAOs are also subject to
a DAO, not just executives, can have a role in the the security challenges that face all smart contract-
decision-making. All DAO participants can view based solutions today.32 Hacks and exploits directed
financial and operational information stored on at DAOs have resulted in the loss of hundreds of
public permissionless blockchains in real time,27 millions of dollars in assets.33 DAOs may also violate
and anyone with sufficient expertise can check members’ privacy or agency through the transparent
its smart contract code. The open, composable recording of member actions and reputation in
structure of DAOs makes it possible for blockchain systems.34 DAOs can also be limited
communities to establish organizational structures by their foundational infrastructure. The scalability
quickly, with customized incentive structures challenges common to blockchain platforms such
directed at a wide array of goals.28 Using token- as Ethereum could diminish the functionality of
based governance, DAOs can consider and large-scale DAOs,35 namely, the extent of the
implement changes at any time, according to a decentralization of many DAOs.
community vote.29 DAOs facilitate experimentation
with innovations such as treasury management, Perhaps the greatest threat to DAOs today is
quadratic voting, subsidies for public goods uncertainty. Without clear legal status, DAOs
provision, streaming payment of salaries and cannot take advantage of the same protections
multifaceted reward structures for contributors. as corporations, such as legal personhood,
limited liability and simplified tax arrangements.36
DAOs also have many limitations and potential Initiatives such as Colorado’s Uniforma Limited
Perhaps the disadvantages. Defining responsibilities and Cooperative Association Act and Wyoming’s DAO
greatest threat compensation structures for contributors, legislation provide pathways for DAOs to attain legal
to DAOs today matching them with community needs and recognition.37 Privately crafted approaches within
is uncertainty. coordinating activity through messaging systems existing law, such as the unincorporated non-profit
Without clear such as Discord is not always a smooth process. association structure,38 decentralized autonomous
legal status, Some DAOs give central management power associations under Swiss law and the dYdX
DAOs cannot take to a small number of individuals for pragmatic framework for non-US trusts, are also emerging.39
reasons or because they established the DAO. Fitting global DAOs into varying national legal
advantage of the
Even when engaging in decentralized governance, structures will be an important challenge.
same protections DAOs have experienced plutocracy, vote buying,
as corporations, manipulation and co-optation, as well as issues In considering the strengths and weaknesses of
such as legal of low voter turnout and voter fatigue.30 When DAOs, it is useful to compare them with traditional
personhood, governance votes do pass off-chain, it can often business associations such as corporations,
limited liability take weeks or months of coordination to push a partnerships, foundations and limited liability
and simplified tax proposal through. companies (LLCs), as well as with communities that
arrangements. organize without formal legal protections.
Strengths Weaknesses
Membership in a DAO is generally represented by platforms such as Discord, Telegram and Twitter.
a digital asset. These “governance tokens” enable Founders work together to determine the DAO’s
holders to propose and vote on changes to the purpose, agree on parameters for governance and
protocol. Proposals can range from cybersecurity develop a rollout plan. DAO communities often
upgrades to overhauls of the organization’s purpose. leverage iconography, memes, acronyms and
other references to organize themselves.41 A DAO
While some DAOs are private, most are based on might also be built around an existing community or
freely-tradable digital assets, enabling any user blockchain-based application.
to obtain governance tokens and become part of
the DAO. DAOs may also grant initial allocations, Once the group has attained agreement, the
including through airdrops – in which tokens are community can then encode their mandate and
provided for free for past usage or in exchange rules into smart contracts, which will ultimately bind
for a service – to founders and other stakeholders the group to its decisions. While some DAOs opt to
who have demonstrated engagement with a code their own rules, DAO creation platforms such
relevant platform. as Gnosis, Moloch, Aragon, Colony and DAOStack
provide off-the-shelf tools for developing smart
As with any organization, the critical first step in contract code. Users of DAO creation services can
establishing a DAO is galvanizing a community set parameters such as the primary token, proposal
united by a common purpose.40 Often, DAOs are velocity, voting period, voting mechanisms and
launched by peers coordinating on communications proposal mechanisms.
The DAO prides itself on its speed and efficiency in funding public goods,
with funds being distributed more rapidly due to the management of the
DAO. At the core of MolochDAO is a smart contract, allowing contributors
to deposit ether and receive proportional voting power to vote on grant
funding. If contributors disagree with how grants are distributed, they
can “ragequit”, exiting the DAO by exchanging their tokens for a pro-rata
claim on the treasury’s assets. This widely-adopted mechanism provides
confidence that a crisis such as the one that destroyed the DAO will not
immobilize participants’ funds.43
Beyond tools for launching DAOs, a host of Tools also exist for creating legal infrastructure for
providers have emerged to offer token services, DAOs. Organizations offer DAOs legal wrappers to
voting management, treasury oversight, risk cover their liability and apply old partnership models
management, growth products, community such as cooperatives46 and investment clubs47 to
platforms, basic operational tools and legal offer DAOs legal standing. The existence of these
services. There are also a number of analytics tools notwithstanding, the question of the legal
services being developed to provide insights into status of DAOs remains largely unresolved.
the emerging DAO ecosystem. Products also exist
with the aim of making DAOs more efficient without In sum, a wide variety of tools have been created
compromising on their decentralized structure. to ease the process of joining, launching and
Multi-signature or “multisig” wallets are digital managing a DAO. Indeed, in recent years this
technologies that make it possible for multiple users ecosystem of DAO infrastructure has become a
to sign a document as a group.45 productive ground for innovation in decentralized
governance in its own right.
A DAO may A corporation might be a multinational Nonetheless, at any moment in time, a DAO will
begin with manufacturing firm with tens of thousands of generally have a predominant goal. This may be
one goal, such employees, a small charitable organization with established in founding documents, such as an
no employees, an educational institution, a sports explicit “constitution”, or it may be articulated
as collective
team, an investment vehicle and everything in- more informally. DAOs associated with operational
investment in NFTs,
between. The potential applications of DAOs are protocols, such as DeFi DAOs (e.g. Synthetix, Yearn
and then morph at least as broad. Distinguishing DAO categories is Finance, dYdX), are connected in some way with
into a community, a important for evaluating DAOs accurately. the objectives of that protocol. While some DAOs
grants organization, are more focused than others, this is also true of
a sponsor of However, categorizing DAOs is challenging. All corporations. Some conglomerates span many
creative work, DAOs operate based around digital assets, which industries and startups that pivot through multiple
an incubator of may be desirable for their financial value, but business models.
entrepreneurial not all DAOs are themselves oriented towards
ventures, a trading making money; some are even designed to give We divide DAOs along two axes. First, what is
platform, or it away.48 A DAO may begin with one goal, such their primary objective? Do they seek to create
anything else. as collective investment in NFTs, and then morph something new (including wealth), enhance the
into a community, a grants organization, a sponsor functioning of a community or society, or achieve a
of creative work, an incubator of entrepreneurial specific goal and then disband? Second, what are
ventures, a trading platform, or anything else. Some the means they use to achieve that objective?
DAOs begin with a well-defined objective, while Do they seek to manage some activity, deploy
others are more diffuse from the start. capital, or organize people? This produces a three-
by-three matrix of major DAO types (Table 2).
TA B L E 2 DAO taxonomy
DAOs continuously evolve. MolochDAO and other treasuries. And in 2021, DAOs associated with
DAOs for deploying grants developed mechanisms NFTs, whether for collective investment, creator
for effective coordination that addressed The DAO’s outreach, or social experiences gated by tokens,
limitations. DeFi DAOs associated with the 2020 rode the NFT boom. However, as Table 2 illustrates,
“DeFi Summer” explosion of value locked in the there is much more happening. Throughout this
DeFi protocol showed that DAOs could successfully report, there are brief case studies of DAOs that
control millions or even billions of dollars in their illustrate many of the categories in the typology.
Each category can be further subdivided. For This is not the only way DAOs might be
example, DeFi governance DAOs such as Uniswap categorized. There are many other metrics that
and Yearn coordinate activity around financial could be used, such as size, which might be
transaction protocols, while Illuvium and Sandbox, measured based on community membership,
in the same box, do so for games, and ENS does the number of token holders, treasury size, total
so for censorship-resistant domain names. While value of locked digital assets, or token market
DAO activity is more concentrated today in some capitalization. Another dimension is whether the
areas, the distribution is likely to change as market DAO supports on-chain voting that directly alters
conditions shift and DAO structures mature. The the smart contracts or whether some participants
“ad hoc” column has the fewest examples today. have the power to control funds and actions of the
However, the story of ConstitutionDAO illustrates DAO directly. DAOs with native tokens might also
the power of this model. Given the potential be distinguished from those that use established
efficiency of automated DAO mechanisms for cryptocurrencies.
quickly developing and winding down organizations,
new kinds of ad hoc DAOs are likely to develop.
DAOs may DAOs also differ in terms of how decentralized of resources across the community. Does a
become more and autonomous they are. Indeed, many DAOs small group control the majority of tokens or
centralized or leverage a mix of centralized and decentralized other resources? Each of these dimensions has
decentralized governance. Further, decentralization has implications for how the DAO could be legally
technical, geographic, political, economic and categorized. Moreover, these dimensions are
over time as the
legal dimensions. How technically decentralized rarely static. DAOs may become more centralized
community and
a DAO is depends on several factors, such as or decentralized over time as the community and
resources evolve. the kind of blockchain it is deployed on and how resources evolve.
many nodes are operating on the network to
validate transactions. Geographic decentralization Likewise, DAOs differ in terms of how autonomous
can be understood as the degree to which DAO they are. Some DAOs leverage smart contracts to
contributors operate in different jurisdictions. enact changes directly, according to governance
Political decentralization is dependent on how votes. Others rely on individuals or groups of
diffuse power is in the organization. For example, individuals to implement changes. Algorithmic DAOs,
is the DAO effectively governed by its original which defer entirely to software, can be differentiated
developers? Who holds the DAO’s administrator from participatory DAOs that use voting mechanisms
keys? Who is in charge of implementing changes? to upgrade smart contracts. A forthcoming
How effective are the governance mechanisms? report will offer frameworks for evaluating how
Economic decentralization refers to the distribution decentralized and autonomous a DAO is.
Without formal legal structures, DAOs may subject their members to liability risk.
But the existence of the foundation effectively shielded community members
from litigation when, in April 2020, it became the subject of a class-action lawsuit
following one of the worst price slumps in crypto history.54 After high losses
during a period of volatility, dubbed “Black Thursday”, users launched a class-
action lawsuit directed at the foundation. The lawsuit alleged that the terms of
service had deliberately misrepresented the structure of the protocol to downplay
risks associated with its use, seeking $30 million in damages.55 At the request of
the Maker Foundation, the case ultimately entered arbitration proceedings.56
In July 2021, the Maker Foundation’s Chief announced that it would cede
full control to a DAO.57 Christensen credits the foundation with having played
an important, though temporary, role in the protocol’s development.58
Today, MakerDAO is composed of individuals around the world that own the
governance token MKR, which enables holders to vote on changes to the
protocol.59 The centralized-decentralized approach to governance pioneered by
the Maker Foundation may herald more hybrid governance strategies to come.60
Distinguishing between different types of DAOs is facilitate freelance work by software developers or
useful, not only for those seeking to understand produce creative work. In some cases, DAOs are
the space but also for regulators.61 DAOs that similar to traditional corporations seeking the same
are vehicles for investment raise different public objectives; in others, DAOs perform functions that
policy and legal questions than those seeking to have no parallel in centralized organizations.
The state of smart contract security and always run the risk of causing catastrophic losses.
mechanisms for responding to attacks have come Moreover, due to their foundational infrastructure,
a long way since the hack of The DAO in 2016. DAOs are subject to many of the same limitations
However, there is still a long way to go. Because and security challenges as the blockchains that they
DAOs directly control assets, vulnerabilities will run on.62
DAOs face several potential technical risks, including smart contract failures
and programming errors. According to BadgerDAO, the hack was the
result of a phishing incident made possible by the injection of malicious
code from Cloudflare, a platform running on Badger’s network. Leveraging
a compromised application programming interface key, the hacker began
injecting code in November 2021.67 In December 2021, the hacker used their
access to drain funds from the wallets of dozens of users of the BadgerDAO
yield vault.68 Blockchain data and security analytics company Peckshield
concluded that the total losses amounted to about 2,100 bitcoin and 151
ether, nearly 10% of the total value locked at the time of the hack.69
The BadgerDAO hack not only exemplifies the technical risks DAOs confront
but also the complexity of community-led restitution efforts. In response to
the attack, many of BadgerDAO’s 32,000 users and 25 core contributors
developed an ambitious plan to restore user assets. Making use of blog posts
and forums, members of the BadgerDAO community created several Badger
Improvement Proposals (BIPs) aimed at indemnification. BIP-79 proposed
distributing new governance tokens to users that lost theirs in the hack. BIP-33
suggested introducing an emergency function that could allow some wallets to
pause smart contracts, mitigating the potential for further damage. Community
members also floated several proposals (BIP 76, 77 and 78) that would
result in a one-time function contract upgrade to take a portion of the funds
back from the hacker’s address. It is worth noting that passing any of these
proposals required the affirmative vote of BadgerDAO users, the vast majority
of whom did not have funds drained in the attack. In this way, the restitution
effort serves as an example of the complexity of DAO restitution efforts.70
Key unresolved legal and regulatory questions to a gift of assets or airdrop, for example, can
confronting DAO practitioners concern legal status, still be considered general partners. Some DAOs
applicable laws and jurisdictional uncertainty. Can have attempted to address this problem through
a DAO fit within legally recognized corporate forms, a hybrid centralized-decentralized approach,
or do new forms of legal recognition need to be where a traditional legal structure is coupled with a
created? Do DAOs need to register and pay taxes? decentralized organization to create some form of
How can they retain, recruit and pay for talent? Do legal status. A number of jurisdictions are creating
DAO tokens fall under securities regulation, which specialized corporate law frameworks for DAOs, but
would create a host of compliance issues? these remain legally untested.82 However, although
new, these approaches do recognize that in many
DAOs do not fit easily into any existing corporate contexts, it may be more suitable to approach
model, raising questions such as whether members DAOs as novel structures rather than shoehorning
who are unaware of their DAO membership due them into existing regulatory frameworks.
DAOs’ autonomous code-driven functionality Whether DAOs are ultimately seen as a new
makes them a natural fit for decentralized corporate form, as specialized implementations
applications, especially those in DeFi that control of traditional ones, or as challenges to the very
and transact digital assets. On the other hand, notion of a corporation, they are rapidly becoming
DAOs for coordinating humans, whether networks more than mere hypotheticals. Their long-term
of collectors or donors seeking to funnel money importance will depend on how effectively they
to good causes are gaining momentum thanks solve organizational and governance problems. For
to their efficiency and flexibility. There is strong millennia, any tool that manifestly improved human
interest in using DAOs to address ESG challenges, coordination eventually caught on and produced
where collective action problems often loom large. dramatic economic and social gains. Only time will
Forthcoming reports will provide frameworks for tell whether DAOs should be added to this list.
evaluating DAOs, propose responses to the policy
questions they raise and examine the application of
DAOs to social impact.