Table of Contents
We have already written a primer on DAOs. If you’re unfamiliar with DAOs, we strongly encourage that you read that article first before continuing.
Since Vitalik Buterin first proposed the concept of a DAO in the Ethereum whitepaper (and a quiet period after the DAO hack), DAOs have re-emerged to play a prominent role in how projects are governed and run on the blockchain. Crypto-native organizations and communities love to identify themselves as a DAO, but sometimes this appears to be a marketing strategy more than anything.
The reality is that DAOs are just like almost everything in the crypto space, nascent and still evolving. This makes discussions surrounding DAOs a messy topic, lacking coherency and full of nuance. We look at some of the recent significant events surrounding DAOs, compare how this would have played out within traditional organizations, and see if there are any lessons to be gleaned from such circumstances.
