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）是组织结构领域的一项新兴创新，已在区块链生态系统中得到广泛应用。我们对21个DAO的链上治理系统进行了实证研究，并开源了实时数据集。所研究的DAO规模和活跃度各异，管辖着多种协议与服务，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领域。分析揭示了投票权的高度集中、链上治理系统的显著隐性货币成本，以及大量无意义的治理活动。