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The Hidden Shortcomings of (D)AOs -- An Empirical Study of On-Chain Governance (2302.12125v2)
Published 23 Feb 2023 in cs.CY and cs.CR
Abstract: Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are a recent innovation in organizational structures, which are already widely used in the blockchain ecosystem. We empirically study the on-chain governance systems of 21 DAOs and open source the live dataset. The DAOs we study are of various size and activity, and govern a wide range of protocols and services, such as decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, infrastructure projects and common goods funding. Our analysis unveils a high concentration of voting rights, a significant hidden monetary costs of on-chain governance systems, as well as a remarkably high amount of pointless governance activity.