DAOs May Be the Future of Work, but Don’t Bet on Them Being the Next Big Asset Class
A growing number of Ethereum enthusiasts believe that decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) could be the future of work, cultural communities and human organization. As such, some think that DAOs, like decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) before them, are due for a mainstream breakthrough. On a basic level the thesis makes sense. After all, DeFi took off on the idea that it‘s the inevitable successor to the traditional financial system while NFTs are soaring on the belief that they are the digital generation’s art world, so why shouldnt DAOs, with their rules of organization programmed transparently onto blockchains, have their moment as they seek to replace the outdated hierarchical structures of centralized corporations? Unfortunately, placing a bet on that trend playing out isnt as cut-and-dry as buying some tokens. At the MCON conference last week, over 300 attendees hand-selected by the organizers met at a sprawling Denver brewery to discuss the future of DAOs. Even by the at-times pollyannaish standards of the Ethereum community – a group that sincerely believes itself capable of building smart-contractual solutions to many of the worlds problems – the outlook was rosy and the mood upbeat. “The way I‘ve been thinking about it, if you look at DeFi,