Decentralized Autonomous Organizations As Emerging Economic Entities in Accounting and Governance Frameworks

Authors

  • Dr. Rajendra V. Patil

    Department of Computer Engineering, SSVPS Bapusaheb Shivajirao Deore College of Engineering, Dhule (MS), India
  • Dr. Vishakha Abhay Gaidhani

    Department of Master of Business Administration, Sir Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology, Nashik (MS), India
  • Dr. Pratibha Vivekanand Kashid

    Department of Information Technology, Sir Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology, Nashik (MS), India
  • Dr. Indrani Hazarika

    Department of Business and Specialization Accounting, Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates
  • Dr. Ramchandra Vasant Mahadik

    Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University) Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship Development, Pune-411038
  • Dr. Govind Mohanlal Poddar

    NES Gangamai Collage of Engineering, Nagaon, Dhule (MS), India
  • Shravani R. Patil

    Department of Computer Engineering, SSVPS Bapusaheb Shivajirao Deore College of Engineering, Dhule (MS), India

How to Cite

Patil , D. R. V. ., Gaidhani , D. V. A. ., Kashid , D. P. V. ., Hazarika, D. I. ., Mahadik, D. R. V. ., Poddar , D. G. M. ., & Patil, S. R. . (2025). Decentralized Autonomous Organizations As Emerging Economic Entities in Accounting and Governance Frameworks. International Journal of Accounting and Economics Studies, 12(4), 166-177. https://doi.org/10.14419/1sy2j677

Received date: June 25, 2025

Accepted date: August 2, 2025

Published date: August 5, 2025

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14419/1sy2j677

Keywords:

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, Blockchain, Smart contracts, Auditing, Accounting Transparency, Decentralized Finance

Abstract

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) represent a new form of economic organization, leveraging smart contracts and blockchain technology to manage financial operations, governance, and decision-making. This structure eliminates the need for centralized intermediaries. From an accounting and economic perspective, this article investigates DAOs, offering a comprehensive examination of their architecture, voting methods, governance procedures, smart contract vulnerabilities, and the legal environment. The article proposes a five-tiered DAO structure, demonstrating how each layer contributes to operational efficiency, transparency, and decentralized responsibility. The study emphasizes the importance of smart contract auditing tools in ensuring reliable financial transactions. According to the data presented in the study, applying traditional accounting principles to token-based transactions, decentralized decision systems, and DAO treasuries poses significant challenges such as token valuation, revenue recognition, and the absence of standardized reporting formats. The study explains how DAOs act as economic coordinators, using real-world case studies such as MakerDAO, Gitcoin DAO, and Uniswap DAO. Additionally, the research highlights the issues DAOs face regarding valuation and compliance. This article concludes with a policy-focused examination of regulatory gaps and offers suggestions for future research directions in the areas of financial integration, legal categorization, and the sustainability of DAOs. Through the integration of institutional and economic theory with the technical structure of DAOs, this research advances our understanding of DAOs as novel forms of finance and governance.

References

  1. A. Wright and C. P. of L. at B. N. C. S. of Law, “The Rise of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: Opportunities and Challenges,” Stanf. J. Blockchain Law Policy, Jun. 2021, Accessed: Jun. 07, 2025. [Online]. Available: https://stanford-jblp.pubpub.org/pub/rise-of-daos/release/1
  2. S. Wang, W. Ding, J. Li, Y. Yuan, L. Ouyang, and F.-Y. Wang, “Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: Concept, Model, and Ap-plications,” IEEE Trans. Comput. Soc. Syst., vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 870–878, Oct. 2019, doi: 10.1109/TCSS.2019.2938190.
  3. B. Nguyen Thanh, H. X. Son, and D. T. H. Vo, “Blockchain: The Economic and Financial Institution for Autonomous AI?,” J. Risk Financ. Manag., vol. 17, no. 2, p. 54, Jan. 2024, doi: 10.3390/jrfm17020054.
  4. Y. Faqir-Rhazoui, J. Arroyo, and S. Hassan, “A comparative analysis of the platforms for decentralized autonomous organizations in the Ethereum blockchain,” J. Internet Serv. Appl., vol. 12, no. 1, p. 9, Dec. 2021, doi: 10.1186/s13174-021-00139-6.
  5. D. Wegner, R. D. Zuquetto, and F. C. Grisi, “Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): Field of Research and Avenues for Future Stud-ies,” BAR - Braz. Adm. Rev., vol. 21, no. 2, p. e230183, 2024, doi: 10.1590/1807-7692bar2024230183.
  6. C. Bellavitis and P. P. Momtaz, “Voting governance and value creation in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs),” J. Bus. Ventur. In-sights, vol. 23, p. e00537, Jun. 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.jbvi.2025.e00537.
  7. R. Morrison, N. C. H. L. Mazey, and S. C. Wingreen, “The DAO Controversy: The Case for a New Species of Corporate Govern-ance?” Front. Blockchain, vol. 3, p. 25, May 2020, doi: 10.3389/fbloc.2020.00025.
  8. C. Bellavitis, C. Fisch, and P. P. Momtaz, “The rise of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs): a first empirical glimpse,” Venture Cap., vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 187–203, Apr. 2023, doi: 10.1080/13691066.2022.2116797.
  9. A. Alawadi, N. Kakabadse, A. Kakabadse, and S. Zuckerbraun, “Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs): Stewardship talks but agency walks,” J. Bus. Res., vol. 178, p. 114672, May 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114672.
  10. A. Wright and P. De Filippi, “Decentralized Blockchain Technology and the Rise of Lex Cryptographia,” SSRN Electron. J., 2015, doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2580664.
  11. M. I. Mehar et al., “Understanding a Revolutionary and Flawed Grand Experiment in Blockchain: The DAO Attack,” J. Cases Inf. Technol., vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 19–32, Jan. 2019, doi: 10.4018/JCIT.2019010102.
  12. S. Rouhani and R. Deters, “Security, Performance, and Applications of Smart Contracts: A Systematic Survey,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 50759–50779, 2019, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2911031.
  13. W. A. Kaal, “Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: Internal Governance and External Legal Design,” Ann. Corp. Gov., vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 237–307, 2021, doi: 10.1561/109.00000028.
  14. S. Hassan and P. De Filippi, “Decentralized Autonomous Organization,” Internet Policy Rev., vol. 10, no. 2, Apr. 2021, doi: 10.14763/2021.2.1556.
  15. Y. Liu, Q. Lu, G. Yu, H.-Y. Paik, and L. Zhu, “Defining blockchain governance principles: A comprehensive framework,” Inf. Syst., vol. 109, p. 102090, Nov. 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.is.2022.102090.
  16. R. Feichtinger, R. Fritsch, Y. Vonlanthen, and R. Wattenhofer, “The Hidden Shortcomings of (D)AOs – An Empirical Study of On-Chain Govern-ance,” in Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2023 International Workshops, vol. 13953, A. Essex, S. Mat-suo, O. Kulyk, L. Gudgeon, A. Klages-Mundt, D. Perez, S. Werner, A. Bracciali, and G. Goodell, Eds., in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 13953. , Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2024, pp. 165–185. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-48806-1_11.
  17. K. Saurabh, N. Rani, and P. Upadhyay, “Towards novel blockchain decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) led corporate gov-ernance framework,” Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change, vol. 204, p. 123417, Jul. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2024.123417.
  18. Z. Wei, J. Sun, Z. Zhang, Z. Hou, and Z. Zhao, “Adaptive Plan-Execute Framework for Smart Contract Security Auditing,” 2025, arXiv. doi: 10.48550/ARXIV.2505.15242.
  19. J. Han, J. Lee, and T. Li, “A review of DAO governance: Recent literature and emerging trends,” J. Corp. Finance, vol. 91, p. 102734, Apr. 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2025.102734.
  20. I. Bashir, Mastering Blockchain, Second Edition. Packt Publication, 2018.
  21. S. K. Panda and S. C. Satapathy, “An Investigation into Smart Contract Deployment on Ethereum Platform Using Web3.js and Solidity Using Blockchain,” in Data Engineering and Intelligent Computing, vol. 1407, V. Bhateja, S. C. Satapathy, C. M. Travieso-González, and V. N. M. Aradhya, Eds., in Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol. 1407. , Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021, pp. 549–561. doi: 10.1007/978-981-16-0171-2_52.
  22. R. V. Patil, I. S. Borse, M. P. Patil, A. H. Khadke, G. M. Poddar, and S. R. Patil, “Ensuring Trust in Blockchain Enabled Business Pro-cesses using Smart Contract Audits,” in 2025 International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies (ICICT), Kirtipur, Ne-pal: IEEE, Apr. 2025, pp. 1248–1254. doi: 10.1109/ICICT64420.2025.11004761.
  23. D. Cagigas, J. Clifton, D. Diaz-Fuentes, and M. Fernandez-Gutierrez, “Blockchain for Public Services: A Systematic Literature Re-view,” IEEE Access, vol. 9, pp. 13904–13921, 2021, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3052019.
  24. D. He, Z. Deng, Y. Zhang, S. Chan, Y. Cheng, and N. Guizani, “Smart Contract Vulnerability Analysis and Security Audit,” IEEE Netw., vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 276–282, Sep. 2020, doi: 10.1109/MNET.001.1900656.
  25. D. Šimůnek, “Decentralized Autonomous Organizations and Trust: Approach to Trust in DAO in the Context of Existing Trust Theo-ry,” presented at the Hradec Economic Days 2023, J. Maci, P. Maresova, K. Firlej, and I. Soukal, Eds., Apr. 2023, pp. 703–714. doi: 10.36689/uhk/hed/2023-01-066.
  26. K. Shah, D. Lathiya, N. Lukhi, K. Parmar, and H. Sanghvi, “A systematic review of decentralized finance protocols,” Int. J. Intell. Netw., vol. 4, pp. 171–181, 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.ijin.2023.07.002.
  27. R. Patil, S. K. Swarnkar, D. Y. Bhadane, G. M. Poddar, M. P. Patil, and R. C. Sonawane, “Exploring governance frameworks and deci-sion pro-cesses in ‎blockchain-based decentralized autonomous organizations,” Int. J. Basic Appl. Sci., vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 166–180, May 2025, doi: 10.14419/h0y6dw98.
  28. N. Augustin, A. Eckhardt, and A. W. De Jong, “Understanding decentralized autonomous organizations from the inside,” Electron. Mark., vol. 33, no. 1, p. 38, Dec. 2023, doi: 10.1007/s12525-023-00659-y.
  29. R. Feichtinger, R. Fritsch, Y. Vonlanthen, and R. Wattenhofer, “The Hidden Shortcomings of (D)AOs -- An Empirical Study of On-Chain Gov-ernance,” 2023, arXiv. doi: 10.48550/ARXIV.2302.12125.
  30. S. Sheikh and I. Sifat, “Built to last, not to scale: The long run of decentralised autonomous organisations,” J. Innov. Knowl., vol. 9, no. 3, p. 100513, Jul. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.jik.2024.100513.
  31. T. Lloyd, D. O’Broin, and M. Harrigan, “The On-Chain and Off-Chain Mechanisms of DAO-to-DAO Voting,” in 2024 IEEE Interna-tional Con-ference on Blockchain (Blockchain), Copenhagen, Denmark: IEEE, Aug. 2024, pp. 649–655. doi: 10.1109/Blockchain62396.2024.00095.
  32. Q. Ding, W. Xu, Z. Wang, and D. K. C. Lee, “Voting Schemes in DAO Governance,” World Sci. Annu. Rev. Fintech, vol. 01, p. 2350004, Jan. 2023, doi: 10.1142/S2811004823500045.
  33. S. S. Kushwaha, S. Joshi, D. Singh, M. Kaur, and H.-N. Lee, “Systematic Review of Security Vulnerabilities in Ethereum Blockchain Smart Con-tract,” IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 6605–6621, 2022, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3140091.
  34. A. Bouichou, S. Mezroui, and A. E. Oualkadi, “An overview of Ethereum and Solidity vulnerabilities,” in 2020 International Sympo-sium on Ad-vanced Electrical and Communication Technologies (ISAECT), Marrakech, Morocco: IEEE, Nov. 2020, pp. 1–7. doi: 10.1109/ISAECT50560.2020.9523638.
  35. J. J. De Leon, C. Zhang, C.-S. Koulouris, F. Medda, and Rahul, “Smart Contract Security in Decentralized Finance: Enhancing Vulner-ability De-tection with Reinforcement Learning,” Appl. Sci., vol. 15, no. 11, p. 5924, May 2025, doi: 10.3390/app15115924.
  36. D. Dhillon, Diksha, and D. Mehrotra, “Smart Contract Vulnerabilities: Exploring the Technical and Economic Aspects,” in Blockchain Transfor-mations, S. M. Idrees and M. Nowostawski, Eds., in Signals and Communication Technology. , Cham: Springer Nature Swit-zerland, 2024, pp. 81–91. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-49593-9_5.
  37. C. Santana and L. Albareda, “Blockchain and the emergence of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs): An integrative model and re-search agenda,” Technol. Forecast. Soc. Change, vol. 182, p. 121806, Sep. 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121806.
  38. S. Bonnet and F. Teuteberg, “Decentralized Autonomous Organizations: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda,” Int. J. Innov. Technol. Manag., vol. 21, no. 04, p. 2450026, Jun. 2024, doi: 10.1142/S0219877024500263.
  39. U. W. Chohan, “The Decentralized Autonomous Organization and Governance Issues,” SSRN Electron. J., 2017, doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3082055.
  40. W. Ma, C. Zhu, Y. Liu, X. Xie, and Y. Li, “A Comprehensive Study of Governance Issues in Decentralized Finance Applications,” ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol., p. 3717062, Feb. 2025, doi: 10.1145/3717062.
  41. J. (Rowena) Gan, G. Tsoukalas, and S. Netessine, “Decentralized Platforms: Governance, Tokenomics, and ICO Design,” Manag. Sci., vol. 69, no. 11, pp. 6667–6683, Nov. 2023, doi: 10.1287/mnsc.2021.02076.
  42. O. Rikken, M. Janssen, and Z. Kwee, “Governance impacts of blockchain-based decentralized autonomous organizations: an empirical analysis,” Policy Des. Pract., vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 465–487, Oct. 2023, doi: 10.1080/25741292.2023.2270220.
  43. S. Li and Y. Chen, “Governing decentralized autonomous organizations as digital commons,” J. Bus. Ventur. Insights, vol. 21, p. e00450, Jun. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.jbvi.2024.e00450.
  44. O. Rikken, M. Janssen, and Z. Kwee, “Governance challenges of blockchain and decentralized autonomous organizations,” Inf. Polity, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 397–417, Dec. 2019, doi: 10.3233/IP-190154.
  45. E. W. Ellinger, T. Mini, R. W. Gregory, and A. Dietz, “Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO): The case of MakerDAO,” J. Inf. Technol. Teach. Cases, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 265–272, Nov. 2024, doi: 10.1177/20438869231181151.
  46. H. Altaleb and R. Zoltan, “Decentralized autonomous organizations review, importance, and applications,” in 2022 IEEE 26th Interna-tional Con-ference on Intelligent Engineering Systems (INES), Georgioupolis Chania, Greece: IEEE, Aug. 2022, pp. 000121–000126. doi: 10.1109/INES56734.2022.9922656.
  47. I. Melnikov, I. Lebedeva, A. Petrov, and Y. Yanovich, “DeFi risk assessment: MakerDAO loan portfolio case,” Blockchain Res. Appl., vol. 6, no. 2, p. 100259, Jun. 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.bcra.2024.100259.
  48. J. A. Berg, R. Fritsch, L. Heimbach, and R. Wattenhofer, “An Empirical Study of Market Inefficiencies in Uniswap and SushiSwap,” in Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2022 International Workshops, vol. 13412, S. Matsuo, L. Gudgeon, A. Klages-Mundt, D. Perez Hernandez, S. Werner, T. Haines, A. Essex, A. Bracciali, and M. Sala, Eds., in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 13412. , Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023, pp. 238–249. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-32415-4_16.

Downloads

How to Cite

Patil , D. R. V. ., Gaidhani , D. V. A. ., Kashid , D. P. V. ., Hazarika, D. I. ., Mahadik, D. R. V. ., Poddar , D. G. M. ., & Patil, S. R. . (2025). Decentralized Autonomous Organizations As Emerging Economic Entities in Accounting and Governance Frameworks. International Journal of Accounting and Economics Studies, 12(4), 166-177. https://doi.org/10.14419/1sy2j677

Received date: June 25, 2025

Accepted date: August 2, 2025

Published date: August 5, 2025