While the organizational structure of a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is fundamentally meant to be “decentralized,” some of the biggest DAO protocols including Uniswap are not. A lot of the day-to-day activities within DAOs still involve a few core members of the organizations to make major decisions. This raises the question as to whether DAOs are completely decentralized. And, if not, is complete decentralization even possible?
More broadly, DAOs can be compared to how democratic nations are run. While the ideology is to have decisions for the country made by the people, it’s mainly governed by a few powerful individuals who hold most of the license to determine laws and control decisions. Also similar to large organizations, shareholders are allowed to vote but the key policies are determined by the board of directors.