What is a DAO?
DAO (acronym) = Decentralized Autonomous Organization
Defintions
Short definition
A DAO is a group of people without central management that coordinates over the Internet around a shared set of rules to achieve a common goal.
Technical definition
A DAO is an internet-native entity without central management which is regulated by a set of automatically enforceable rules on a public blockchain, and whose goal is to take on a life of its own and incentivize people to achieve a shared common mission.
Aragon-specific technical definition
Aragon brings more than a general description of DAO - we provide an opinionated technical framework for developing DAOs. At present these technical opinions include
Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and EVM compatible tools as our public blockchain of choice
IPFS as our web3 network storage protocol of choice
Multi-signature wallets as the default
Freedom to customize the EVM Access Control Lists (ACLs) in a hierarchical and flexible way - software should aspire to reflect how people naturally interact.
Key words
For our purposes, you can think of DAOs as flexible, global, and uncensored online organizations.
DAO use cases
Part-time projects with friends or strangers
Future of work: people working part-time on multiple things for short periods of time
Temporary pop-up companies
Companies in authoritarian jurisdictions
Global, distributed teams
Trends around the world accelerating DAO adoption
The rise of populist authoritarians
The future of work (remote and distributed)
The growing de-platforming problem
The rise of decentralized finance
The increasing complexity of human civilization
Growing adoption of blockchain currencies in central banking institutions
You can read more about DAOs at aragon.org/dao.
References
Decentralised Autonomous Organisations and the Corporate Form p. 316
Last updated