All terms
A decentralized autonomous organization, coordinated by token votes and contracts.
A DAO manages shared funds and decisions through onchain proposals and voting instead of a company structure. Treasuries can run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
Legal status remains unsettled in most jurisdictions, and participation is usually far lower than the ideal implies. Many DAOs are effectively run by a small active core.
A DAO proposal typically has a discussion phase, a signaling vote, then a binding onchain vote that executes automatically if it passes.
That a DAO means nobody is in charge. Voting power follows tokens, so a small number of large holders usually decide, and someone still controls the keys that execute the result. Most DAOs are a governance process attached to an ordinary team.
Common questions
Are DAOs actually decentralized?
Can a DAO be sued?
Where to go next
More defi terms
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Some of these land faster in conversation than in writing. Sessions are one to one and you can ask anything, including the things that feel too obvious to ask.