The DAO Controversy: The Case for a New Species of Corporate Governance?

Abstract

This paper reviews the recent case of The DAO "hack" in June 2016 and analyzes The DAO's response in its time of crisis, and its implications for corporate and IT governance. There was no human-led governance in The DAO. Instead, The DAO placed its trust in the smart contract they had built together on the blockchain, which became its governance mechanism. The events that follow allow us to see hitherto unobservable organizational behaviors that are unique to trustless organizations, and hence The DAO gives us a glimpse at a new species of corporate governance. This paper explores the implications of these ideas: we propose the emergence of a spectrum of organizations based on the alienation of trust, we consider the economic impact and legality of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), smart contracts, work and job design, and what happens when corporate governance is managed solely by IT governance.

Ants-Review: A Privacy-Oriented Protocol for Incentivized Open Peer Reviews on Ethereum

“…Therefore, an ERC20 pool token would be automatically released by the protocol, representing the accrued interest on the Anters’ stake over time that can be traded, sold, or held as the Anter desires. A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) [ 17 , 29 ] could be formed in the future to allow ANTS stakers to participate in the governance of important aspects of the protocol, from smart contracts upgrades to minor changes in settings across the protocol.…”

Perspectives on “Good” in Blockchain for Good

“…In such structures, data is freed from the silos of the large firms and becomes fluid and able to create value for the individual and the organisations who help them create and share it. A shift in power from the tech giants to the individual would be facilitated by decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) (Gilder, 2018;Morrison et al, 2020) and other decentralised platforms that promote data fluidity (and so, creation of value) ensuring user agency over that data and its use.…”

Ants-Review: a Protocol for Incentivized Open Peer-Reviews on Ethereum

“…Therefore, an ERC20 pool token would be automatically released by the protocol, representing the accrued interest on the Anters' stake over time that can be traded, sold, or held as the Anter desires. A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) [29,30] could be formed in the future to allow ANTS stakers to participate in the governance of important aspects of the protocol, from smart contracts upgrades to minor changes in settings across the protocol. Finally, a protocol upgrade inspired by Discover 17 , a Web3 browser by Status 18 and still under investigation would allow Anters to validate peer reviews via an upvote/downvote system that will consent the protocol to automatically pay out the reward to the reviewers based on the votes associated with their peer reviews.…”