DAOs – decentralized autonomous organizations – are an essential tool in achieving the self-empowering benefits of web3, including more equitable ownership among stakeholders, reduced censorship and greater diversity.

DAOs advance web3’s benefits by enabling decentralization. They allow developer companies to hand control of the developed networks and protocols to users, most commonly through the distribution of governance tokens. This process effectively turns the networks and protocols into public utilities that users can then build on top of, knowing that there is no centralized controlling authority that may suddenly change the rules and decide to extract value from them. DAOs are often utilized to control treasuries that incentivize ongoing development of their network and protocols, thereby ensuring that the open source and decentralized technology of web3 will have sufficient resources to continue innovating and improving.

Beyond the network and protocol variety, DAOs come in many flavors. These include:

1. Investment DAOs in which individuals, friends, and colleagues form clubs to invest in web3 startups;

2. Collector DAOs which acquire NFTs;

3. Social DAOs that convene web3 communities;

4. Collective/Cooperative DAOs in which groups of artists and engineers deliver services to other DAOs; and

5. Charitable DAOs that promote good causes and public goods development.

DAOs – decentralized autonomous organizations – are an essential tool in achieving the self-empowering benefits of web3, including more equitable ownership among stakeholders, reduced censorship and greater diversity.

DAOs advance web3’s benefits by enabling decentralization. They allow developer companies to hand control of the developed networks and protocols to users, most commonly through the distribution of governance tokens. This process effectively turns the networks and protocols into public utilities that users can then build on top of, knowing that there is no centralized controlling authority that may suddenly change the rules and decide to extract value from them. DAOs are often utilized to control treasuries that incentivize ongoing development of their network and protocols, thereby ensuring that the open source and decentralized technology of web3 will have sufficient resources to continue innovating and improving.

Beyond the network and protocol variety, DAOs come in many flavors. These include:

1. Investment DAOs in which individuals, friends, and colleagues form clubs to invest in web3 startups;

2. Collector DAOs which acquire NFTs;

3. Social DAOs that convene web3 communities;

4. Collective/Cooperative DAOs in which groups of artists and engineers deliver services to other DAOs; and

5. Charitable DAOs that promote good causes and public goods development.