What is a DAO? Decentralized governance explained

In April 2024, a single on-chain vote moved $165 million from Uniswap’s treasury into a two-year grants program. No CEO signed off. No board convened. A collection of token holders, pseudonymous and scattered across every time zone, debated the proposal on a forum, cast their votes through a smart contract, and the funds moved, automatically, irreversibly, exactly as the code specified. This is what a decentralized autonomous organization does: it replaces the corporate hierarchy of officers, boards, and bylaws with token-weighted voting and smart contracts that execute the results. Whether that replacement is an upgrade, a sidegrade, or a new category of organizational failure depends entirely on which DAO you examine and when you examine it. Summary A DAO is an internet-native organization governed by smart contracts and token-holder votes, replacing traditional corporate hierarchy with programmable governance rules. DAOs manage over $30 billion in combined treasury assets across hundreds of active organizations, governing everything from DeFi protocols and investment funds to social clubs and collector groups. The model solves real coordination problems, particularly for open-so...