Despite the crypto-market crash in the spring of 2022 and the collapse of FTX in November 2022, decentralised finance (DeFi) proponents are still predicting that DeFi may soon go mainstream.
As well as the increasing involvement of regulated financial institutions in the DeFi area, another development may lead to more mainstream acceptance of DeFi, namely the incipient presence of regulatory, supervisory and oversight frameworks. With the growing number of DeFi projects, the number of DAOs – virtual organisations built and run on code and blockchain technology – is also growing.
The new corporate structure of DAOs offers benefits appropriate for the era of digitalisation and decentralisation. However, as most countries around the globe do not yet have in place a specific legal regime for DAOs, how DAOs are to be understood and categorised is a matter for speculation. Because there is no general regulatory framework in this rapidly evolving environment, and a wide variety of DAOs, each DAO has to be understood and categorised individually.
The legal characterisation of DAOs depends on national laws that may or may not apply, depending on how the DAO itself is set up. This requires an assessment of each DAO under the private and corporate law of the relevant legal system. A small number of legal systems have passed legislation specifically dedicated to DAOs. Others disregard the technology used and recognise aspects of DAOs according to existing laws, as a result of which they become subject to already established pieces of legislation.
The legal recognition of a DAO in a given legal system may also be the result of a court judgement that can equate the features of an informal organisation with those of a formal one.
L'investissement dans les crypto-actifs présente un risque de perte en capitale totale ou partielle. Dehfi attire l’attention des internautes sur le fait que des services et produits décrits dans le site peuvent faire l’objet de restrictions dans certains pays ou vis-à-vis de certaines personnes.
