Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are a recent innovation in organizational structures, which are already widely used in the blockchain ecosystem. We empirically study the on-chain governance systems of 21 DAOs and open source the live dataset. The DAOs we study are of various size and activity, and govern a wide range of protocols and services, such as decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, infrastructure projects and common goods funding. Our analysis unveils a high concentration of voting rights, a significant hidden monetary costs of on-chain governance systems, as well as a remarkably high amount of pointless governance activity.

翻译：去中心化自治组织(DAO)是组织结构的近期创新，已在区块链生态系统中得到广泛应用。我们针对21个DAO的链上治理系统开展了实证研究，并开源了实时数据集。所研究的DAO规模与活跃度各异，管理者涵盖去中心化交易所、借贷协议、基础设施项目及公共物品资助等各类协议与服务。分析揭示出投票权的高度集中、链上治理系统显著的隐性货币成本，以及大量无意义的治理活动。