The explosive growth of decentralized finance (DeFi) and hype around non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have led to a re-emergence of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) over the last year. With a diverse set of use cases ranging from sophisticated million-dollar nonprofits and art collectives to venture funds and social communities. The total value locked (TVL) in DeFi DAO platforms has grown from less than USD 10 billion in June 2020 to nearly USD 100 billion in early September 2021. Larger players (e.g Aave, MakerDAO, and Compound) have attracted significant VC funding in exchange for governance tokens used to determine voting rights. Even a few traditionally run organizations, such as the NFT platform Rarible, have transformed into DAOs to democratize decision-making.

This resurgence comes after a 2016 hack of The DAO, an early iteration of the concept, which set back the technology in a similar manner as what the Bitcoin community experienced following the Mt. Gox hack two years earlier. Nevertheless, over the last five years, blockchain literacy has grown and interest in DAOs has risen. A clear path to the establishment of trillion-dollar treasuries over the next five years with the launch of new products and token models is now in sight for the first time.