Motion: DAOs are better than corporations (Kain Warwick vs. Edmund Schuster)

Announcement: I have a new show called “Crypto This Week.” It’s a weekly, five-minute news comedy satire focused on the world of crypto. Check it out on YouTube here: Crypto This Week with Richard Yan

Guests:

Kain Warwick (twitter.com/kaiynne)
Edmund Schuster (twitter.com/Edmund_Schuster)

Host:

Richard Yan (twitter.com/gentso09)

Today’s motion is “DAOs are better than corporations.”

Crudely speaking, DAOs are chat rooms with a joint bank account. More sophisticated DAOs code up treasury management decisions to be dictated by the outcomes of on-chain community voting. DAOs generally operate with a culture of maximal, real-time transparency. And there are very restrictive rules about what the governing body of DAOs can do.

As DAOs gain popularity, we are increasingly seeing claims of how DAOs are superior to the corporate form. In the summer of 2021, the state of Wyoming even passed a DAO-related law that will provide liability protection for DAO members who organize as a Wyoming LLC.

But are DAOs truly revolutionary forms of governance as they’re made out to be? This remains up to debate.

Our two guests today are the founder of a major DeFi protocol and a returning guest in the form of a law professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. It was a great debate, I hope you will enjoy it as much as I hosted it.

If you’re into crypto and like to hear two sides of the story, be sure to also check out our previous episodes. We’ve featured some of the best known thinkers in the crypto space.

If you would like to debate or want to nominate someone, please DM me at @blockdebate on Twitter.

Please note that nothing in our podcast should be construed as financial advice.


Source of select items discussed in the debate (and supplemental material):

• DAOs related to Synthetix: https://decrypt.co/37011/synthetix-is-now-controlled-by-three-daos
• Edmund Schuster's paper on smart contracts: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3476678
• Wyoming DAO law: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/04/22/state-lawmaker-explains-wyomings-newly-passed-dao-llc-law/

Guest bios:

Kain Warwick is the founder of Synthetix, a protocol for trading synthetic tokens that wrap non-crypto assets such as currencies and stocks. Before Synthetix, Kain founded Blueshyft, a cash payment gateway for online services in Australia. In July, Kain published an article called “DAO First Capital Formation” where he advocated DAOs as a powerful mechanism for fundraising of new crypto startups.

Edmund Schuster is an Associate Professor of corporate law at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on corporate law, law and finance, takeover regulation, as well as the economic analysis of law. In October 2019, he published the paper “Cloud Crypto Land” that discusses inherent obstacles in the legal system that prevent blockchain systems and smart contracts from being truly useful. He is a self-declared no-coiner.