HowtoDAO.it Newsletter 8 – Decentralized Autonomous Organizations – January 13th 2026 until 26th January 2026

Welcome to the eight DAO newsletter. If you have interesting insights that should be in our newsletter as well, please let us know via info@howtodao.it.  Enjoy the read!

In this week’s newsletter the General Market and a Broad Scientific update section!

General DAO Market Update

In one of our earlier newsletters, we mentioned a research that showed hacks and disputes predominately lead to value loss of the value of the governance token of a DAO, not so much the loss of the hack in itself. It looks like the AAVE dispute proofs this point as they lost half a billion dollar in governance token value due to the disputes mid-December. Some more well known DAOs news: Uniswap has now also launched on X Layer, the Ethereum Layer 2 of OKX. Yield Guild Games is launching a new quest, together with Loaded Lions.

The WOO Network community has passed a proposal to burn a significant amount of their tokens. In total 300 million tokens, about 15% of the total supply, will be burned. It will directly contribute to the short term economic value, but the effect on the long term still remains to be seen.  Another DAO that burned a significant amount of their tokens is HTX DAO, burning the equivalent of $23M+ in their tokens.

For those interested in a oversight job on DAOs. The CTFT in the US apparently faces a crypto oversight capacity shortage. Among others there is a real need on staff knowledgeable in Decentralized Autonomous Organization Governance. It might very well be that DAOs are in the lift once again. Vitalik Buterin called upon a “DAO Renaissance” by integration Zero Knowledge Proofs as well as AI assistance in decision making in DAOs.  

As always there are some new DAO kid on the block(chain): Kaanch Netwerk, positioning itself as a next-generation Layer-1 blockchain, just announced an airdrop for ecosystem expension. BullZilla is marketed by the project as a meme-coin. The concept is built around a narrative (“lore”) and token mechanics. Not sure if we need another meme-coin, but let’s see what they will bring. Quite an interesting new DAO initiative is Crunch DAO, a decentralized "marketplace" for quantitative research. In the interview, the founder explains the idea behind Crunch DAO. ElevateFi, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol built on the Polygon blockchain, has officially launched a new staking and rewards ecosystem designed to prioritize transparency, sustainability, and community ownership. AddTON DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization, claims to make stride in the blockchain world by centering its operations on the TON blockchain network. Interesting enough, although claiming to be a DAO, they do present their “strong leadership team”. As always, the best of luck to the newcomers, we hope you add true value!

Scientific Update

A lot of interesting scientific articles were published in all different areas of expertise!

A chapter by Cui and Singh elaborates on how DAOs as an essential element of Web 3.0 ecosystems by cultivating trust amongst participants and preclude circulation of erroneous data can play a crucial role in enhancing supply chain resilience, illustrated by Japanese case studies. A paper by Riabokon was published on institutional efficiency of DAOs in scaling digital business ecosystems. The conclusion is that DAOs perform the functions of institutional coordination and reduction of transaction costs in digital business ecosystems as result of algorithmic decision making and execution by smart contracts to ensure compliance.

A couple of papers were more (business) functional focused. An article by Soria Ruiz-Ogarrio et al where they present a first formal economic analysis of DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) architectures by modelling investment decisions under network effects in a blockchain-native Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO), with protocol-defined reward schemes. Their research confirms that decentralized provision improves efficiency compared to centralized models. This semi-scientific paper by Bosco et al explores how DAOs van contribute in empowerment of creators and artist, providing ownership as well as control over their creative work.  In this paper, Kibet proposes the use of DAO for the governance and token based incentive system for ride sharing platforms to address structural limitation of current platforms like high commission structures, algorithmic opacity, regulatory fragmentation, and limited stakeholder participation.

Two articles more focusing in governance. To tackle the problem of on-chain voting that is transparent but costly, marginalizing small participants, while off-chain mechanisms lower participation costs but rely on trusted multi-signature execution, reintroducing centralization, Goa and Yu introduce the concept of VoS: Practical Verifiable Voting with Trustless Aggregation and Minimal On-chain Footprint. An interesting paper by Weidener et al, elaborates on The Metagovernance Trilemma Across Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, focusing on mechanisms through which one DAO shapes or constrains another DAO's governance.

Two conference papers on the crossroad of AI and DAOs were published in the past weeks. The first is a paper by Chandra et al on Machine Learning Algorithms for Optimizing Blockchain-Based Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, suggesting that machine learning can significantly optimize DAO architecture and contribute to a more scalable, democratic, and intelligent decentralized ecosystem. The second by Joseph et al on Machine Learning Algorithms for Enhancing Governance in Blockchain-Based DAOs presenting an innovative framework integrating machine learning algorithms to enhance the operational efficacy of blockchain-based decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

Looking at the transformation effect of various Web3 elements, including DAOs, in human resource management, the research by Aprillio et al indicates a paradigm shift in HRM from administrative functions to strategic, technology-driven roles emphasizing digital competence and data transparency and highlights challenges in privacy, data regulation, and digital literacy as critical barriers to Web3 adoption in human resource systems.

Also a legal paper was published. In this paper by Lin, a “three-dimensional compliance adaptation framework” for DAO governance was proposed for US based DAOs. This framework, based on 7 use cases achieves some significant reductions in compliance risk scores and increases in investor participation, increase in approval rate and reduction in compliance labor costs.