Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are blockchain-based entities that pool digital assets, automate governance through smart contracts, and enable collective decision-making challenging traditional corporate structures. By attempting to avoid hierarchies and centralized control, DAOs promote transparency and global participation, while raising complex questions around liability, governance, and regulation in the digital age.

This authoritative volume places DAOs within the framework of corporate law, offering a rigorous, interdisciplinary analysis of their evolution and potential. Written by a global team of scholars from the United States, United Kingdom, continental Europe, Australia, and Asia, the book combines cutting-edge blockchain research with legal expertise. It traces DAOs from their idealistic origins as code-based systems designed to replace traditional law, to practical adaptations in Swiss associations and bespoke legal forms in U.S. states such as Wyoming.

Key chapters explore legal debates, historical parallels with early corporations, and governance innovations that expand participation while testing accountability. Case studies highlight DAOs' diversity and adaptive governance, while additional chapters address bankruptcy, international law, dispute resolution, collective investment, and DeFi regulation. Forward-looking perspectives consider DAOs' legal integration, limitations, and emerging intersections with AI.

Ideal for academics, policymakers, investors, and professionals navigating Web3, Foundations of Decentralized Organizations: Blockchain and the Future of Corporate Law reveals DAOs' transformative potential to reshape corporate law and organizational design.

Introduction
Part I - DAOs as an Innovation in Corporate Form
1:DAO Legal Forms Around the World, Nina Reiser
2:Are Bespoke DAO Forms Needed in Organizational Law?, Shawn Bayern
3:DAOs and the History of Corporate Law, Michael Schillig
Part II - DAO Governance
4:DAOs and Corporate Governance, Jill E. Fisch
5:The Fiduciary Duties of Network Participants of Blockchain Systems, Morshed Mannan and Primavera de Filippi
6:DAOs: The Theory of the Firm and Ostromian Perspectives, Daniela Gandorfer and Eva Micheler
7:DAOs are Adaptive Governance Engines, Darcy W.E. Allen, Chris Berg, Aaron M. Lane, Jason Potts
Part III - Legal Considerations
8:DAOs in Financial Distress, Kara Bruce, Christopher K. Odinet, and Andrea Tosato
9:Choice of Court Agreements in Disputes Involving DAOs, Florence Guillaume
10:Code, Community, and Conflict: DAO Disputes, Bianca Kremer
11:DAOs for Collective Investment: An Emerging Paradigm, Nizan Geslevich Packin and Anat Alon-Beck
12:Regulating Decentralized Finance: How Financial Regulation Sheds Light on Governing DAOs, Iris H-Y Chiu
Part IV - The Future of DAOs
13:The Law of Digital Organizations: A Prospective, Jason Grant Allen and Peter Hunn
14:What Do DAOs Really Contribute?, Edmund Schuster and Kelvin F.K. Low
15:Out of Control: DAOs, AI and the Question of Autonomy, Kevin Werbach