What is DAO?
Also called: decentralized autonomous organization, decentralised autonomous organisation
A DAO coordinates a shared treasury and decisions through onchain voting rather than a corporate hierarchy. Membership and voting power usually come from holding a governance token.
In practice
DAOs run protocols, fund public goods, and pool investment capital. The recurring problems are practical rather than ideological: low voter turnout, concentrated voting power, and the gap between an onchain vote and the offchain work it authorises. Contribution history is the credential that matters here.