DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization)
An internet-native organization coordinated by token voting and smart contracts instead of managers and legal charters.
A DAO is an organization whose rules and treasury live in smart contracts, with decisions made by holders of its governance token. DAOs manage some of DeFi’s largest protocols and treasuries worth billions, voting on everything from fee changes to grants.
The model’s promise is transparent, borderless coordination; its recurring problems are low voter turnout, whale-dominated votes, and the gap between on-chain votes and off-chain execution. Legal recognition is patchy — some US states and offshore jurisdictions offer DAO wrappers, but in much of the world their status remains genuinely unsettled.