DAO Governance: Voting Power, Participation, and Controversy—A Review and an Empirical Analysis
Markus Jungnickel, Ferda Özdemir Sönmez, Catherine E. A. Mulligan, William J. Knottenbelt · Distributed Ledger Technologies Research and Practice · 2025
Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) have emerged as a novel organizational structure, attracting growing interest due to their decentralized, transparent governance, which replaces traditional hierarchies with stakeholder-managed rules codified as smart contracts. Although various governance models exist, comparative research across dimensions remains limited, leaving the literature fragmented and offering little practical guidance for selecting suitable models. This article critically analyses existing governance mechanisms and their implementation to support the development of more effective DAO models. To address current gaps, we review prior quantitative studies and conduct exploratory data analysis on centralization, participation, and decision controversy. The findings show that reputation and share-based models can mitigate the centralization seen in token-based systems, though all models suffer from low member engagement, suggesting an over reliance on direct democracy. Our analysis can be replicated across platforms and time frames to refine and validate these insights.