What makes a DAO a DAO (Pol.is data review)
Consensus on DAO qualities
There is consensus among participants that a DAO has at least these qualities. Consensus means that at least 60% of participants agreed with these statements.
- Decentralised power: no single source of authority
- Autonomous: self-sovereign, not bound to an external coercive force
- A common goal, vision or set of values that are (being) worked towards
- open-door politics (instead of hidden agendas)
Notes:
- Group C, D, and E have a similar voting profile for the 5 statements
Lack of consensus on DAO qualities
- An organization where everyone has the same goal. The decision is shared among all the people. I would say: A real Democracy.
- Crowdfunded, not VC funded
- Permissionless
- Proof of identity is required to trust a dao.
Opinion Groups
Summary:
Group C, D, and E have a similar voting profile. Group B adds a new perspective, but with only 5 people, I’m cautious to draw conclusions from it. Group A has a different view on what makes a DAO. The point of disagreement is how transparent a DAO is.
- Group A: Not everything is transparent in a DAO
- Group B: Not everything is shared in a DAO, especially not at the start. DAOs are striving for decentralization
- Group C: DAOs have shared leadership, but not one shared goal.
- Group D: Everything is transparent, shared, and flexible in a DAO.
- Group E: DAOs operate autonomously and are remote-first. A shared goal unifies members.
Group A (23 participants)
Group A disagree that DAO does not include open-door politics. This makes them unique to the other four groups. Participants in group D, E and F agreed with this statement.
Group B (5 participants)
Group B is very small compared to the other groups. It could be a minority opinion within the general DAO ecosystem, or it could be a limitation of our sample.
This group considers that key qualities of DAO are not shared leadership, permissionless, and shared treasury. The group seems to be defined what a DAO is not. However, participants view that DAO’s are an evolving entity becoming more and more decentralized with increasing maturity.
Group C (17 participants)
Group C seems to be the counterpart of Group B. Participants in this group consider that shared leadership and being permissionless is what makes a DAO a DAO. They do not consider that a DAO quality is that all participants have the same goal and share decisions or that a DAO is a governance structure and should be incorporated.
Group D (21 participants)
For participants in group D key qualities of a DAO is transparency (open-door politics), togetherness (shared vision or common/overlapping goal), and flexible structures (fluid hierarchy)
Group E (17 participants)
Group E is very similar to group D. The difference between these two groups is that participants in Group E consider a key quality of DAOs to be remote-first. This is a quality a majority of participants in Group D disagree with (35%).
In addition to this, participants also stress the autonomous nature of DAOs. It also looks like Group E participants have a stronger opinion on the quality of togetherness: Goals shouldn’t just be overlapping, but members of a DAO should have the same goal.