DAO

A DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation) is an organisation whose decision-making is encoded in smart contracts — proposals are submitted on-chain, token holders vote, and passing proposals execute automatically (change a parameter, move treasury funds, upgrade a contract). The canonical shape is a governance token (UNI, MKR, AAVE) where one token equals one vote, though variations like quadratic voting and vote-escrow models (Curve's veCRV) try to fix the "whale dominance" problem. The honest state: most DAOs are not actually autonomous — a core team still drafts proposals, voter turnout is low (often under 10%), and "the DAO decides" usually means "the dev team proposes, a handful of big holders approve". The model works well for narrow, mechanical decisions (fee switches, reward emissions) and poorly for anything requiring real judgment or speed.