The DAO

For other uses, see Dao (disambiguation).
The DAO
Company typeDecentralized autonomous organization
IndustryCryptocurrency software venture capital fund
Founded2016
Area served
Global[1]
Key people
Stephan Tual, Simon Jentzsch, Christoph Jentzsch
Total assetsETH 11.5 million[2]
Owners+18 000 stakeholders[3]
Number of employees
0 (automated)[4]
The DAO (software)
Repositorygithub.com/blockchainsllc/DAO
Written inSolidity
LicenseGNU LGPL v3+

The DAO was a digital decentralized autonomous organization[5] and a form of investor-directed venture capital fund.[6] After launching in April 2016 via a token sale, it became one of the largest crowdfunding campaigns in history,[6] but it ceased activity after much of its funds were taken in a hack in June 2016.

The DAO had an objective to provide a new decentralized business model for organizing both commercial and non-profit enterprises.[7][8] It was instantiated on the Ethereum blockchain and had no conventional management structure or board of directors.[7] The code of the DAO is open-source.[9]

Christoph Jentzsch at the Festival of the Future (Festival der Zukunft) from 1E9 and Deutsches Museum (Munich, Germany on July 22nd 2022)

In June 2016, users exploited a vulnerability in The DAO code to enable them to siphon off one-third of The DAO's funds to a subsidiary account. The Ethereum community controversially decided to hard-fork the Ethereum blockchain to restore approximately all funds to the original contract. This split the Ethereum blockchain into two branches, each with its own cryptocurrency, where the original unforked blockchain continued as Ethereum Classic.[10]

By September 2016, the value token of The DAO, known by the moniker DAO, was delisted from major cryptocurrency exchanges (such as Poloniex and Kraken). The DAO had in effect become defunct.[11][12]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Economist2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference nythack was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Tom Simonite for MIT Technology Review. The “Autonomous Corporation” Called the DAO Is Not a Good Way to Spend $130 Million Archived 2016-06-02 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Brady Dale for The Observer. May 20, 2016 The DAO: How the Employeeless Company Has Already Made a Boatload of Money
  5. ^ The Decentralized Autonomous Organization and Governance Issues. Archived 2018-06-04 at the Wayback Machine Regulation of Financial Institutions eJournal: Social Science Research Network (SSRN). 5 December 2017.
  6. ^ a b Waterss, Richard (2016-05-17). "Automated company raises equivalent of $120M in digital currency". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2020-11-08. Retrieved 2016-05-17.
  7. ^ a b Rennie, Ellie (2016-05-12). "The radical DAO experiment". Swinburne News. Swinburne University of Technology. Archived from the original on 2016-05-16. Retrieved 2016-05-12. When it reaches the end of the funding phase on May 28, it will begin contracting blockchain-based start-ups to create innovative technologies. The extraordinary thing about The DAO is that no single entity owns it, and it has no conventional management structure or board of directors.
  8. ^ Allison, Ian (2016-04-30). "Ethereum reinvents companies with launch of The DAO". International Business Times. Archived from the original on 2016-05-01. Retrieved 2016-05-01.
  9. ^ "The DAO: How the Employeeless Company Has Already Made a Boatload of Money". The New York Observer. 20 May 2016. Archived from the original on 23 May 2016. Retrieved 31 May 2016.
  10. ^ "Hard Fork Completed". 20 July 2016. Archived from the original on 14 August 2016. Retrieved 21 July 2016.
  11. ^ "Poloniex to delist 27 altcoins including DSH and DA". Economic Times. 24 August 2016. Archived from the original on 4 October 2016. Retrieved 17 June 2017.
  12. ^ "DAO Delisting". Kraken website. 18 December 2016. Archived from the original on 12 October 2018. Retrieved 17 June 2017.