A decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is an organization that is collectively governed, rather than relying on central leadership. DAOs are typically built on blockchain, using features like smart contracts, governance tokens, token-based voting and a crypto-based treasury. In large communities, [[Group thresholds|especially above ~75 members]], trusting people can be unreliable. Blockchain features provide transparency in every decision and transaction - so we can trust the code instead of people. However, some communities can't have have all processes as part of the on-chain DAO, for example those with treasuries outside of crypto wallets. For smaller communities that trust their people, using blockchain may not be necessary. Simpler technologies like forums, spreadsheets and bank accounts can be sufficient. These communities can create a direct democracy, which is a similar governance philosophy to DAOs: - Collective decisions through proposals and votes - Clearly defined rules and member rights - Shared treasury They may also keep parts of their governance on blockchain, like proposals, voting and member rights, and other parts, like transactions, off-chain. When a DAO grows, it can bring lower participation, slower decisions and a lot of proposals, leading to spam/noise. To solve this, DAOs implement things like - Representatives / working groups that independently handle some decision types - Delegating votes, where members can give their vote to someone they trust [^1] [^1]: “A Beginner’s Guide to DAOs.” 2021. March 12. [https://paragraph.com/@lindaxie/a-beginner-s-guide-to-daos](https://paragraph.com/@lindaxie/a-beginner-s-guide-to-daos). [[BeginnersGuideDAOs2021|Annotations]]