During the early years of the cryptocurrency space, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and smart contracts were discussed in principle. Nowadays many consider the DAO launched in 2016 by members of the Slock.it development team to be the first smart contract-based DAO. In 2022, there are too many DAOs, as statistics show that there are $10 billion in DAO treasuries.
Thousands of DAOs, $10 Billion in Treasury, 1.7 Million Governance Token Holders
Before the concepts were introduced, smart contracts and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) had come to the imagination of some of the greatest cryptographers. After the great invention of Satoshi Nakamoto, blockchain technology with smart contracts opened the doors for decentralized organizations.
In 2016, Ethereum developers and members of the Slock.it team referred to and cited by many as the first decentralized autonomous organization. Following the announcement of The DAO by Stephen Tull, Simon Gentzsch and Christoph Jentzsch, the project managed to raise $150 million from the tokens sold.
However, due to vulnerabilities in its code base, The DAO was hacked and the attacker managed to embezzle millions of dollars in Ethereum (ETH). “This is an issue that particularly affects The DAO; Ethereum itself is completely secure,” Vitalik Buterin said in June 2016. The DAO attack did not prevent the creation of the DAO, as a report published by ConsenSys in September 2021 recorded “978,000 DAO members”.
“Current projects include many that focus solely on token services, governance, treasury management, risk management, development, community, operations, and development of the DAO,” the ConsenSys report details.
Academic paper on DAO says concept ‘could usher in a new era in organizational economics’
Statistics from the analytical web portal deepdao.io show that today the top decentralized autonomous organizations in terms of Treasury holdings are valued at $10 billion. According to Metrics at the time of writing, $7.1 billion is liquid and $2.9 billion is currently vested.
Among the top DAOs, there are 1.7 million Governance token holders, and 669,000 active voters and proposal makers. At the time of writing, Uniswap’s DAO holds the largest treasury with $2.2 billion, and Gnosis is the second largest with $1.5 billion.
Uniswap has the largest number of Governance token holders today with a record 332,900. In terms of governance token holder numbers, Uniswap is followed by Decentraland, Compound, ENS, Aave and Synthetix. The bottom of Uniswap and Gnosis’s Treasury holdings are Bitdao ($1.3B), Polkadot ($441.9M), and UXD Protocol ($406.9M).
Today’s top three DAOs, in terms of Treasury size, hold multiple tokens whereas Polkadot’s DAO holds only DOTs. The UXD protocol leverages five different cryptos in the Treasury, including the project’s algorithmic stablecoin based on the Solana blockchain. Of the 332,900 Governance token holders on Uniswap, deepdao.io statistics indicate that there are only 8,400 active members.
Metrics show Gnosis has 17,700 Governance Token holders but only 1,500 active members. Uniswap has 83 governance proposals, Gnosis has 43 proposals, and Bitdao currently has 10 proposals that users can vote on. Pancake Swap and Decentraland have the most proposals as Pancake Swap has 3,300 and Metaverse Project Decentraland has 1,200 governance proposals.
DAOs are certainly a reality now, but there is a whole lot of debate about how decentralized and autonomous they really are. Despite some setbacks, an academic paper on the DAO states that overall, “DAOs could usher in a new era in organizational economics, transforming the global corporate landscape from hierarchical organizations to democratic and distributed organizations driven by organizational entrepreneurship and innovation.” can.”
What do you think about today’s thousands of DAOs and the $10 billion held by the DAO treasury? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comment section below.
image credit: Shutterstock, Pixabay, WikiCommons
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation or recommendation or endorsement of an offer to buy or sell any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the Company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.
![Is Bitcoin [BTC] doing enough to allure deeply-affected miners](https://files.ambcrypto.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/25152814/bitcoin-5896212_1280-1000x600.jpg)
