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We are happy to inform you that your manuscript has been accepted for publication since the reviewers' comments have been addressed.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Arkaitz Zubiaga, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
The comments have not been addressed. Please check the comments and make the corrections.
**Language Note:** The review process has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services - please contact us at [email protected] for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title). Alternatively, you should make your own arrangements to improve the language quality and provide details in your response letter. – PeerJ Staff
The authors have covered the revisions. But ,some issues are still current.
-line 560 has missing ref. Authors must do proof reading(!).
-601 check("). Again proof reading, please!
-remove or redesign itemization, it kills space in the paper. And these subsections must be improved or revised. It is not usual to see to a lot of sub/subsections.
-Ref. must be revised, missing doi must be entered. Also some links are defined (medium or others), these maybe fail by next year or sooner, authors must resolve this.
-table1 is not explained very well with compressively.
-Authors must answer this question: What makes your work different than other works?
It is covered.
It can be improved to show the contribution more.
The authors have addressed my suggestions/concerns in the revised manuscript.
The authors have addressed my suggestions/concerns in the revised manuscript.
The authors have addressed my suggestions/concerns in the revised manuscript.
The referral process is now complete. While finding your paper interesting and worthy of publication, the referees and I feel that more work could be done before the paper is published. My decision is therefore to provisionally accept your paper subject to major revisions. The qualitative analysis should be extended. The practical usage of them should be discussed in detail.
**PeerJ Staff Note:** Please ensure that all review and editorial comments are addressed in a response letter and that any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate.
**Language Note:** The review process has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services - please contact us at [email protected] for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title). Alternatively, you should make your own arrangements to improve the language quality and provide details in your response letter. – PeerJ Staff
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I am pleased to have the opportunity to review your paper titled "The Rise and Fall of DAOstack: Challenges of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations." This study critically examines DAOstack, a prominent decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) platform, through a mixed-methods approach that combines historical data, platform metrics, and user interviews. Despite the notable contributions of your work, certain areas need improvement:
• The introduction of the paper could benefit from a more focused and thorough discussion of the research question. You started the introduction by explaining background information about DAO history without offering a clear motivation for this research or outlining a specific research question. Ideally, you should motivate your research by drawing a puzzle for the reader. It would be helpful to explicitly articulate the research puzzle the paper seeks to address and position the study within the broader theoretical context of prior work on DAOs. While you argue that "no other paper provides an analysis of the evolution of a DAO platform," it is essential to explain why understanding the evolution of a DAO platform is important. How is this paper going to enhance our understanding of a particular phenomenon (e.g., DAO challenges or sustainability)? I understand that the nature of this study is exploratory, and you are not developing or testing a theory in this research. However, even in an exploratory study, the authors must have a specific research question that they plan to address, and that research question must be motivated by prior research on DAOs.
• I recommend adding a paragraph to the end of the introduction discussing your contributions to research and practice. This addition would strengthen the framing of your contribution early in the manuscript.
• In the literature review section, you must clarify how your paper relates to the work by Faqir-Rhazoui et al. (2021). They also study DAOstack governance. Hence, you must explain how your work complements that paper.
• I think the definition and concept of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) need revision. A possibly useful definition has been proposed by Ellinger et al. (2024). They define DAOs as "collectively owned human-machine systems deployed on a blockchain that self-govern through smart contracts and the voluntary contributions of autonomous community members" (p. 245). Since this paper is published in MISQ, a highly prestigious journal, I recommend adopting this definition.
• You mention that you developed a measure called Minimum Majority Control (MMC) to assess power concentration. The definition of MMC appears to be very similar to the Nakamoto coefficient, which has been a well-known measure for evaluating the distribution of power in blockchains and DAOs. Is your measure different from the Nakamoto coefficient? If not, why do you adopt a different name? If you are developing a novel measure, please explain how it is different from prior measures used in several DAO studies (e.g., Fritsch et al., 2022; Jensen et al., 2021). Please also see Barbereau et al. (2023) for a list of alternative measures, such as the Gini index.
• The number of informants interviewed for qualitative analysis is very limited. I am not convinced that you can reach saturation in a qualitative study with only six informants.
• The presentation of the findings—both quantitative and qualitative—feels disjointed. While the manuscript includes many interesting insights, they are not integrated into a cohesive narrative. Results are often presented in isolation, without clear connections to one another or sufficient discussion of their broader implications. I recommend reorganizing the results section to enhance clarity. For example, consider reporting statistical analyses and descriptive details within the methodology or a dedicated "Results" section. Then, create a separate "Findings" or "Discussion" section that interprets these results and explains their significance. Alternatively, you might conclude each subsection (e.g., 4.1, 4.2) with a summary that synthesizes the key takeaways from that section.
• The writing would benefit from careful editing to improve fluency. Many paragraphs are very short (one to two sentences), which disrupts the flow of the text. Merging related points and expanding on key ideas will help create a more fluid and engaging reading experience.
• I recommend reporting the contributions and limitations of your work in the discussion section. You can also suggest avenues for future research based on your findings. For example, you mention that the paper advocates for a multidisciplinary experimental approach for future DAO designers. It would be interesting to expand on this argument and explain the implications of your research for practitioners more clearly.
References
Barbereau, T., Smethurst, R., Papageorgiou, O., Sedlmeir, J., & Fridgen, G. (2023). Decentralized Finance's timocratic governance: The distribution and exercise of tokenized voting rights. Technology in Society, 73, 102251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2023.102251
Ellinger, E., Gregory, R., Mini, T., Widjaja, T., & Henfridsson, O. (2024). Skin in the Game: The Transformational Potential of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. MIS Quarterly, 48(1), 245 272. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2023/17690
Faqir-Rhazoui, Y., Arroyo, J., & Hassan, S. (2021). A Scalable Voting System: Validation of Holographic Consensus in DAOstack. Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2020-January, 5557–5566. https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2021.676
Fritsch, R., Müller, M., Wattenhofer, R., & Zürich, E. (2022). Analyzing Voting Power in Decentralized Governance: Who controls DAOs? https://doi.org/https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.01176
Jensen, J. R., von Wachter, V., & Ross, O. (2021). How Decentralized is the Governance of Blockchain-based Finance: Empirical Evidence from Four Governance Token Distributions. https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2102.10096
The Authors submitted a case study analysis of DAOstack, a platform created to facilitate Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), by examining its performance, governance model, user experience, and etc. The study suggests an empirical assessment of one platform using real user data and interviews, providing grounded insights into why such platforms may fail.
The work confirms and builds on existing findings instead of contributing new research. Analysis of DAOs as a real-world test case, providing valuable empirical evidence and fresh user-centered insights. The critical recommendation for a more experimental, multidisciplinary design framework offers a clear forward-looking agenda for DAO researchers and builders.
Figures 3, 4, and 5 must be readable and explained well.
See "Basic reporting".
Long conclusions must be revised. The paper also requires proof reading. The equations must be in middle and respected to PeerJ regulations. Some paragraphs are long some of them short, authors must respect the paper order management. I expect some numeric presentations in the Abstract. The paper size also short, considering numerous references.
- The paper focuses on DAOstack, a platform that is currently inactive and has been discontinued. Since no association is made with current DAO governance systems, the scientific and practical contribution of the study remains limited.
- The Holographic Consensus mechanism used by DAOstack is not currently in practice. Therefore, a detailed examination of a failed system alone is insufficient to provide a reference to current technological developments in the field.
- Although the paper provides an analysis specifically for DAOstack, no technical and structural comparisons are made with DAO platforms that have existed in a similar period or are active today.
- The paper does not make any significant theoretical contribution to the existing literature, nor does it propose new concepts or methodological frameworks.
- Only six people were interviewed in the qualitative analysis section, and these individuals were already active members of DAOstack. This sample size makes it challenging to generalize about community experiences.
- While the reasons for DAOstack's failure are detailed, there is insufficient discussion on how these implications can inform current DAO structures. The study's results do not include recommendations that directly benefit current researchers or developers.
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