DAOs: Absorbing the Internet

The shape of this future is rapidly coming into focus and centers around an organization referred to by technologists as “decentralized autonomous organizations,” or DAOs. These DAOs operate with different assumptions than many of today’s traditional legal entities and other business associations. DAOs are not run by boards or managers, but rather ... See more

In summary, eight imagined qualities of decentralized autonomous organizations are autopoietic, alegal, superscalable, executable, permissionless, aligned, co-owned, and mnemonic. Drawn from observation, these qualities trace desires for interdependence growing in the cracks of legacy institutions, as well as the dubious inheritance of cybernetic d... See more

DAOs will eventually replace the traditional model. A DAO is an internet-native organization with core functions that are automated by smart contracts, and with people who do the things that automation cannot (e.g., marketing, software development). In practice, not all DAOs are decentralized or autonomous, so it is best to think of DAOs as interne... See more

While encompassing traditional for-profit models as well, the earlier term DAC (decentralized autonomous company) was also used to imagine a natural system that is conceived of as self-governing within a humanist framework. Linked to the eleventh century “deodand” legal entity, a physical object that has been granted personhood in order to be litig... See more