The Ethics of Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs)

Abstract

The rapid and widespread adoption of decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) in recent times has propelled this facet of blockchain technology into the mass periphery. DAOs are built on blockchain, an open and distributed ledger that securely records cryptographically linked transactions. While the growing interest in and uptake of blockchain enabled technologies have sparked discussions about the global implications across various disciplines, the majority of the existing academic research primarily focuses on the technical aspects. With the business and technological communities driving blockchain’s rapid development, the literature on the ethics of blockchain is exceptionally deficient. Despite the relative newness of DAOs, expectations of what they can deliver range from extremely high to intensely low, and the questions around development and application bring unprecedented ethical challenges. This research aims to bridge this gap and contribute to the development of a more comprehensive ethical discourse within this rapidly evolving field.