Social Dynamics of DAOs: Power, Onboarding, and Inclusivity

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Kozlova, Victoria, Biedermann, Ben
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Kozlova, Victoria
Biedermann, Ben
author_facet Kozlova, Victoria
Biedermann, Ben
contents This report explores the often-overlooked cultural and social dynamics shaping participation and power in DAOs. Drawing on qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations, it shows how factors such as financial privilege, informal gatekeeping, visibility bias, and onboarding structures create barriers to meaningful inclusion. While DAOs are frequently framed as permissionless and egalitarian, the lived experiences of contributors reveal a more complex reality, one in which soft power and implicit norms determine people's position within DAOs. Instead of offering solutionist prescriptions, this report argues for a deeper cultural reflection within the DAO ecosystem. It highlights that decentralisation is not solely a protocol-level feature, but an ongoing social process that requires intentional cultivation of trust, belonging, and epistemic plurality. With this report, we want to sharpen the collective awareness of structural blind spots and call for building more inclusive and culturally conscious decentralised systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_06163
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Social Dynamics of DAOs: Power, Onboarding, and Inclusivity
Kozlova, Victoria
Biedermann, Ben
Computers and Society
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
C.2.4; C.2.1; D.4.6; K.4.3
This report explores the often-overlooked cultural and social dynamics shaping participation and power in DAOs. Drawing on qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations, it shows how factors such as financial privilege, informal gatekeeping, visibility bias, and onboarding structures create barriers to meaningful inclusion. While DAOs are frequently framed as permissionless and egalitarian, the lived experiences of contributors reveal a more complex reality, one in which soft power and implicit norms determine people's position within DAOs. Instead of offering solutionist prescriptions, this report argues for a deeper cultural reflection within the DAO ecosystem. It highlights that decentralisation is not solely a protocol-level feature, but an ongoing social process that requires intentional cultivation of trust, belonging, and epistemic plurality. With this report, we want to sharpen the collective awareness of structural blind spots and call for building more inclusive and culturally conscious decentralised systems.
title Social Dynamics of DAOs: Power, Onboarding, and Inclusivity
topic Computers and Society
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
C.2.4; C.2.1; D.4.6; K.4.3
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06163