A Categorization of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: The Case of the Aragon Platform

Abstract

The advent of blockchain technology has paved the way for numerous innovations in online governance, with decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) emerging as a prominent development, often referred to as “digital jurisdictions.” Despite experiencing remarkable growth, currently boasting nearly 7M users and $18 billion in assets, DAOs remain relatively underexplored in the existing literature, particularly from an empirical perspective. This study presents a comprehensive framework comprising 15 dimensions to categorize DAOs based on their operational domain, purpose, scope, voting process, and utilization of crypto-tokens. By applying this categorization schema to 40 DAO communities hosted on the Aragon platform, encompassing over 423 000 participants and managing treasuries worth $960M, we shed light on the prevailing characteristics of these DAOs. Contrary to assertions made by blockchain enthusiasts, our analysis reveals that DAOs predominantly operate in financial and technological domains, primarily offering blockchain-based services. Additionally, our investigation into their governance structure exposes limitations in terms of democratic participation, as decision-making power typically correlates with the number of tokens owned by the voter, resembling plutocracies rather than true democracies. We believe these findings will facilitate researchers’ comprehension of this innovative form of governance and aid practitioners in designing future DAOs with greater effectiveness. Furthermore, our analysis can be replicated on other platforms or at different time periods to validate and contrast our conclusions.