[TL;DR]
- The value created by employees worldwide is concentrated in the hands of a few shareholders and executives, while individual expertise and contributions are absorbed as company assets, leaving employees vulnerable to platform dependency and opaque decision-making structures.
- By tokenizing individual contributions on the blockchain, it becomes possible to guarantee continuous revenue, ensure transparent decision-making through decentralized governance, and establish fair reward mechanisms proportional to each contribution.
- Creators, investors, citizens, and all individuals can independently monetize their expertise, while technological infrastructures such as WaaS and smart contracts enable a global decentralized organizational economy where collective intelligence solves social problems, ushering in a new era.
1. Structural Limitations of Traditional Organizational Structures: Centralization and Value Monopolization
1.1. The Decision-Making Monopoly of Traditional Corporations: Real Value Taken by Shareholders and Executives
When we look at the corporate ecosystem where we work and consume today, we find a fundamental contradiction. The value created every day by billions of employees worldwide is converted almost entirely into profits for a small group of shareholders and executives. Global giants like Apple or Google generate hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue, yet the individual employees who actually develop products and operate services receive little more than fixed salaries, with almost no benefit from the company’s growth.
The most problematic aspect of this structure is the concentration of power in the processes of value creation and decision-making. All key decisions—such as strategic direction, new product development, and market entry—are made by a small executive group, while the execution and success of those decisions rely entirely on the efforts of ordinary employees. Developers, designers, and marketers who carry out the actual work have no authority to decide how the products they create succeed or how they are monetized.
Furthermore, the shareholder capitalism model creates distorted incentives that prioritize short-term profit maximization over long-term value creation. To meet quarterly earnings expectations, companies repeatedly resort to layoffs or cuts in R&D investments, and the resulting damage is borne directly by frontline employees. On the other hand, additional value generated through employees’ creative ideas or efficiency improvements is entirely absorbed into shareholder dividends or executive bonuses.
This concentration of wealth and power further intensifies information asymmetry within organizations. Executives monopolize knowledge of overall business performance, financial health, and future plans, while employees, confined to their assigned work domains, find it difficult to grasp the company’s broader situation. This information gap makes it hard for employees to engage with the company’s long-term vision or develop a sense of ownership, thereby structurally limiting overall organizational efficiency and creative capacity.
1.2. Undervaluation of Employees and Contributors, and Platform Dependency
One of the biggest problems faced by employees or contributors in today’s corporate structure is that there are almost no direct pathways for them to independently monetize their capabilities and achievements. Even if a talented software developer creates an innovative algorithm, the output becomes company property. Even if a creative marketer designs a successful campaign, the experience remains only as a line on their résumé. Even if a skilled salesperson secures a key client, the client relationship is owned by the company, meaning that when the employee leaves or starts a new venture, they cannot carry forward the value of their contributions.
This platform-centric structure pressures employees to conform to standardized roles, treating them as interchangeable resources. Even complex and creative problem-solving tasks must be simplified to fit into company processes and systems in order to be recognized. Developers’ proposals for new technologies or methodologies often fail to gain adoption if they are incompatible with existing systems or standards. Marketers, too, find that repeating tried-and-tested methods is often safer for performance evaluations than pursuing truly creative approaches.
Individual expertise and experience are continuously diluted by the company’s commercial logic. More seriously, the contributions accumulated by employees become the property of the company, leaving individuals with no long-term value. Years of project experience, customer relationships, and operational know-how all belong to the company, making it difficult for employees to prove or leverage their contributions when moving to another company or starting a business.
This dependency weakens employees’ bargaining power and leaves them vulnerable to corporate policy changes. A restructuring could suddenly diminish the role of a long-serving employee, and a shift in strategic direction could devalue entire groups of experts overnight. Despite having valuable expertise and contributions, employees are structurally exposed to economic insecurity depending on unilateral shifts in corporate strategy.
1.3. Lack of Transparency and Trust: Information Asymmetry and Biased Governance
Another fundamental limitation of traditional corporate structures is the absence of fair mechanisms to ensure transparency in decision-making processes. Employees rarely know the standards executives use to make strategic decisions, how performance evaluations are conducted, or what principles govern promotions and compensation. This lack of transparency becomes a breeding ground for bias and unfairness.
Executives with personal or political interests may distort organizational direction in their favor by relying on subjective judgment rather than objective data. Ordinary employees, lacking access to the background information or authority to challenge such biased decisions, are structurally forced to accept unreasonable policies or personnel changes.
Faulty decisions within organizations can cause not just inconvenience but serious economic damage. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies executed excessive layoffs or downsizing, yet the rationale and consideration of alternatives were never sufficiently disclosed to employees. Financial losses from poor investment strategies, failures in market entry decisions, and project delays due to inaccurate technology choices are everyday occurrences.
In the current system, accountability for poor decisions is rarely clear. Executives often dismiss errors as “business judgments,” while the resulting harm is borne by ordinary employees. In many cases, even employees who made correct suggestions or warnings must endure the same consequences as those caused by misguided executives. This creates a vicious cycle where it is safer to simply align with a superior’s intentions rather than pursue accuracy or constructive input.
2. The New Organizational Model Proposed by DAOs
2.1. Tokenization of Individual Contributions and Establishment of Ownership
As a fundamental solution to the structural problems of traditional organizations, DAOs introduce a system that establishes clear ownership of every contribution and achievement made by individuals through blockchain. Code written by developers, campaigns designed by marketers, and client relationships secured by sales representatives can all be recorded as unique digital assets, ensuring that contributors permanently retain ownership. Beyond merely protecting intellectual property, this creates a new economic model where the value generated through the use and success of these contributions within the organization is continuously returned to the original contributor.
In traditional systems, once employees contributed to the company, all subsequent utilization and monetization of their work belonged entirely to the company. In contrast, within a DAO’s tokenization system, the original contributor automatically receives a share of rewards whenever their contribution is reused, expanded, or applied in other projects. For example, if a developer’s algorithm is applied to a new project, adapted for product development, or licensed externally, the creator receives ongoing economic benefits.
This ownership model fundamentally reshapes the economic incentives of organizational members. Because a high-quality contribution can continue to generate revenue as it is reused across multiple projects, contributors are motivated to focus on long-term, high-quality outputs rather than short-term achievements aimed at promotions or performance reviews. Documenting expertise and sharing it with colleagues also becomes a form of long-term asset-building, encouraging a cultural shift where members actively disclose their knowledge and experiences.
This transformation leads directly to qualitative improvements in contributions within organizations. Employees no longer need to simplify complex problems or produce superficial results just to impress superiors. Instead, they can make deep, authentic contributions rooted in their real expertise and experience. As a result, organizations obtain more accurate and practical outcomes, while contributors receive fair rewards for their efforts, creating a virtuous cycle.
2.2. Decentralized Decision-Making and Governance Systems
If ownership of contributions motivates production, then decentralized governance ensures transparency and fairness in organizational operations. In blockchain-based DAOs, all major decisions are made through decentralized voting systems that harness the collective intelligence of members. Strategic proposals are written by experts in relevant fields, HR policies are reviewed by the employees directly affected, and budget allocations are examined by department representatives who evaluate priorities and effectiveness.
Contributors to these reviews and votes also receive token rewards for their participation in governance, motivating them to take an active role in organizational management beyond task execution. Members who consistently provide accurate and constructive input earn higher governance scores, granting them access to more significant decision-making processes and the accompanying rewards—a merit-based system in action.
The greatest strength of decentralized governance is that it enables objective decision-making free from the biases of specific individuals or groups. Unlike the top-down or politically motivated decisions in traditional corporations, DAO decision-making processes are transparently recorded on the blockchain, allowing anyone to verify who evaluated a proposal, on what grounds, and with what outcome. Over time, members’ decision-making accuracy and expertise are accumulated as reputation scores, strengthening the reliability and precision of the governance system.
Moreover, the system applies a self-regulating mechanism: members who repeatedly make accurate judgments gain greater influence, while those who provide poor or biased evaluations naturally lose weight in governance. This effectively filters out malicious or distorted decisions while ensuring that true experts gain corresponding influence and rewards in a fair environment.
2.3. Token Reward Mechanisms Based on Contribution
The economic foundation supporting ownership and decentralized governance lies in a sophisticated incentive structure that measures each individual’s contributions precisely and rewards them proportionally with tokens. Rather than a one-time salary for completing a task, rewards are distributed continuously based on how helpful the contribution was to peers, how it was evaluated by other experts, and how much it advanced the organization’s objectives.
For instance, if a developer creates a code library that is widely reused across teams and improves efficiency, they receive not only the initial compensation but also ongoing token rewards proportional to its usage.
If a marketer’s strategy is validated by other departments and contributes to real revenue growth, they are compensated in proportion to that success. Such performance-based rewards encourage members to go beyond routine tasks and focus on meaningful contributions that truly advance organizational goals.
Another key aspect of token rewards is that they foster cross-functional collaboration and integration. Contributors who bridge expertise across teams or propose solutions to complex interdepartmental challenges receive additional rewards. For example, product planning that connects developers and marketers, customer management systems that integrate sales and support, or performance evaluation methods combining HR and finance are valued more highly.
This multi-layered reward structure encourages natural role differentiation and specialization within organizations. Those who excel at generating new ideas, refining and validating proposals, or coordinating cross-team collaboration can all contribute according to their strengths and be rewarded accordingly. It creates a more diverse and flexible organizational ecosystem beyond the rigid hierarchies of today.
Furthermore, token economics enables the accumulation of long-term value from contributions. Experience and knowledge gained early in one’s career can continue generating income years later. As younger members build upon and enhance the work of predecessors, the original contributors also share in the resulting value. This creates a virtuous cycle in which the entire process of producing, validating, and applying contributions ensures fair rewards for all participants, while simultaneously enhancing organizational capabilities and collective problem-solving power.
3. Sector-Specific DAO Application Scenarios
3.1. Tokenization for Creator Communities: New Revenue Models for Artists, Developers, and Content Creators
One of the biggest limitations faced by creators today is that their ability to monetize creative capacity is constrained by the physical limits of time and space. Even a highly skilled graphic designer can only take on a limited number of projects in a day, and even an experienced developer can only participate in a few projects at once. In DAO systems, however, creators can tokenize their expertise and works, enabling them to deliver value globally without spatial or temporal limits and generate continuous revenue.
For example, if an illustrator tokenizes their decade-long experience into an NFT guide titled “Core Principles and Practical Techniques of Character Design,” every time aspiring designers worldwide reference and apply it to their work, the original creator receives token rewards. Similarly, if a front-end specialist publishes a tokenized methodology on “Optimizing Responsive Web Design” that helps startups cut development time, they earn proportional compensation.
The key point of this model is that a creator’s work and expertise function as practical problem-solving tools rather than mere informational resources. A UX designer with 20 years of experience who documents the complex process of interface design and tokenizes it allows other companies facing similar challenges to reduce trial-and-error and cut development costs. The creator earns continuous revenue from a single knowledge contribution, while the companies gain access to proven expertise at far lower costs—a win-win scenario.
Furthermore, individual works and expertise can be interconnected and combined, enabling collective solutions to complex projects that no single creator could solve alone. Developing a game, for instance, requires concept art from visual artists, technical execution from programmers, and audio expertise from sound designers. In a DAO model, each contribution is tokenized, and the collective success of the game results in shared outcomes, creating a new form of collaborative creation.
3.2. Investment DAOs and Crowdfunding: A Decentralized Investment Bank Built by Individuals
While creator DAOs focus on monetizing individual expertise, investment DAOs aim to dismantle the monopoly of traditional financial institutions and build a global investment network accessible to all. Today, opportunities in venture capital or private equity are limited to a select few due to high minimum investment requirements and geographic barriers. In contrast, decentralized investment platforms allow world-class experts to tokenize their analyses and judgments, directly connecting them with individual investors worldwide.
For example, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist’s startup evaluation framework, a hedge fund manager’s market analysis, or a real estate expert’s regional investment guide can all be tokenized as standalone assets, enabling investors to selectively apply them according to their needs and preferences. Unlike traditional bundled fund products, this allows individuals to compose personalized portfolios using only the knowledge they truly need.
What is even more compelling is that the collective integration of individual expert insights can lead to more accurate and real-time investment decisions than traditional institutions. For instance, a personal crypto investor can combine blockchain technical analysis from a domain expert, market forecasting from a macroeconomist, and hedging strategies from a derivatives specialist to build an investment strategy more advanced than that of most established financial firms.
The core of this decentralized investment model is a reward system tied to performance. It is not enough to merely provide investment advice—accuracy and profitability of that advice are recorded on the blockchain. Experts whose analyses lead to real gains are rewarded with tokens. Moreover, if investors share new insights or results from their investment activities, they also receive rewards proportional to their contribution. As a result, investing shifts from a one-way consumption of information to a process of mutual learning and collective intelligence formation.
3.3. Community Service DAOs: Citizen Participation and Monetization of Public Value
While expertise transmission is critical in investments, real-time and on-the-ground engagement is key in community services. Traditionally, local issues were identified and addressed solely by government agencies and public institutions. In DAO-based community service ecosystems, however, every resident can act as a citizen service provider—recording problems and solutions in real time and earning token rewards proportional to the value of their contributions.
For example, when a citizen documents a damaged road with precise photos and geolocation, local governments or road management companies that use this data provide token compensation. Likewise, a resident who contributes ideas or volunteer work for a local festival and helps ensure its success receives rewards proportional to their social contribution.
The most crucial element of this system is a verification mechanism to ensure the reliability and effectiveness of citizen contributions. Reports are cross-validated against confirmations from other residents or official data, and proposed solutions are evaluated on whether they lead to actual improvements. Citizens who consistently provide accurate and valuable input earn higher trust scores, leading to greater opportunities in future local decision-making and higher rewards—a reputation-based system in action.
Moreover, decentralized community service systems can capture subtle and localized issues often overlooked by traditional institutions. Minor neighborhood concerns or specific group-related inconveniences that large municipalities may miss can be directly recorded and shared by the people affected. This greatly enhances the diversity and accessibility of public services while creating a fair ecosystem where every citizen who contributes to solving local problems is appropriately rewarded.
4. The Technological Infrastructure Supporting DAO Protocols
4.1. Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS): User Interfaces that Hide Complexity
For creators to tokenize their work, investors to run decentralized funds, and citizens to provide community services while reaping economic benefits, it is essential that they can use these systems without having to deal with blockchain’s underlying complexity.
This is where Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS) plays the role of a crucial bridge connecting DAOs with everyday users. The goal of WaaS is to enable experts who want to tokenize their investment analyses or citizens who want to contribute to solving local issues to use blockchain-based services with the same ease as using any mobile app—without needing to understand private key management or gas fees.
The most important element of WaaS is the complete abstraction of blockchain wallet creation and management through social login. Unlike in the past, when a creator had to memorize seed phrases and securely store private keys, today they can simply log in with Google or Kakao, while wallets are automatically generated and managed in the background. Experts setting up an investment DAO or citizens offering community services can seamlessly use these systems without any knowledge of blockchain or cryptocurrency.
Another core value provided by WaaS is the unification of multi-chain asset management. Currently, DAO services are spread across multiple blockchains such as Ethereum, Polygon, and Solana, forcing users to juggle different wallets and token transfers. WaaS consolidates this, enabling users to manage tokens earned from creative activities, investment returns, or community contributions all within a single interface.
Users no longer need to worry about which chain holds which tokens, what network fees apply, or how to perform cross-chain transfers. WaaS automatically finds the optimal routes and executes transactions. This technical abstraction enables seamless interactions across DAO sectors: for example, using tokens earned through creative work to participate in investment DAOs, or spending rewards from community contributions on expert consultations—achieved with just a few taps instead of complex technical processes.
4.2. Smart Contract-Based Governance and Automated Execution Systems
While WaaS enhances accessibility for DAO ecosystems, smart contract-based governance systems automate and transparently enforce the complex rules of organizational operations. Unlike traditional organizations, where HR policies and performance evaluations are opaque and arbitrarily applied, DAOs encode all operating principles into code, ensuring predictability and fairness in automated execution.
Voting rights allocation, reward distribution, decision-making processes, and project approvals are all processed by predefined algorithms, eliminating room for subjective bias or manipulation.
For example, when a new project proposal is submitted in a creator DAO, review requests are automatically sent to members with expertise in the relevant field. Within a set timeframe, their evaluations are collected, and the approval decision is finalized, followed by automatic budget allocation and scheduling—all executed through smart contracts. In investment DAOs, complex financial operations such as portfolio management, profit distribution, and loss handling are similarly executed automatically according to pre-coded rules, minimizing human error and preventing deliberate manipulation.
Another key function of smart contracts is the implementation of performance-based rewards through conditional execution. Compensation is not simply triggered by task completion; it depends on measurable outcomes—how useful the result was to others, and how much it contributed to organizational goals. For instance, creators receive additional rewards once their work reaches a certain usage threshold, investment analysts earn bonuses if their reports generate real profits, and community contributors are rewarded proportionally if their proposals solve real problems.
Moreover, smart contracts can manage complex vesting and lock-up mechanisms to align long-term incentives. Portions of token rewards can be released gradually over time, or additional bonuses can be unlocked only when specific performance milestones are met—all executed automatically without human intervention. This creates an environment where members can focus solely on their contributions and outcomes without worrying about office politics or arbitrary decisions.
4.3. Interoperability in Contribution Measurement and Reward Distribution
While smart contracts handle automation within individual organizations, interoperability systems create the technical framework for decentralized contributions and rewards to flow freely across DAOs and blockchain networks. Unlike traditional organizations that operate independently and make talent mobility and knowledge-sharing difficult, DAOs enable contributions and reputations accumulated in one organization to be recognized and utilized seamlessly in another through standardized protocols.
For example, a portfolio created by a designer in DAO A can be used in a project in DAO B or referenced in an educational program in DAO C, with the original contributor’s rights and revenue share automatically guaranteed. This cross-DAO compatibility allows experts to find optimal collaboration opportunities without being tied to a single organization, while DAOs themselves gain access to a wider talent pool and richer resources.
Standardization of contribution measurement is the key mechanism that underpins interoperability. Expertise, collaboration ability, leadership, and creativity—previously assessed only within individual organizations—are measured according to unified metrics and protocols. This allows evaluations to be consistent and comparable across DAOs. For example, an analyst recognized for outstanding performance in one investment DAO can carry their reputation and track record into another, immediately receiving appropriate roles and responsibilities.
Flexible reward distribution systems also maximize contribution utility while protecting creators’ rights. For example, contributions can be made freely available for research purposes but require fair revenue-sharing when used commercially. They can also be free for educational use but come with proportional royalties for profit-driven projects, with these conditions automatically enforced.
Ultimately, standardized interoperability systems enable the formation of a global DAO collaboration marketplace, where individual contributions and expertise transcend borders to find their optimal applications—realizing a truly global decentralized economy.
5. Challenges of DAOs and the Future of an Individual-Centric Organizational Economy
5.1. Resistance from Traditional Corporations and Regulatory Barriers
Despite the fundamental changes proposed by DAOs, there are numerous real-world barriers to their full implementation. One of the greatest challenges is the strong resistance from established corporations. Global enterprises that have profited for decades from centralized structures are unlikely to suddenly distribute power and profits to decentralized employee networks. They will attempt to impose restrictions on DAO-style operations through regulatory lobbying, or create their own token-based reward systems to lock in existing employees.
With vast capital resources, these corporations could also pressure emerging DAO projects by offering temporary benefits or exclusive contracts. For example, a tech giant might lure top developers away from DAO participation by offering salaries far above current levels, or investment institutions could monopolize renowned analysts through exclusive deals—both strategies that would suppress competition.
Regulatory uncertainty and legal complexity also present significant obstacles. Questions remain unresolved: How will tax laws, labor laws, and financial regulations apply when individuals tokenize their expertise and sell it, or when they receive compensation through DAO participation? What legal responsibilities apply to decisions made collectively by a decentralized organization? How governments view DAOs and what regulatory frameworks they create will heavily influence the pace and direction of ecosystem growth.
Additionally, differences in data sovereignty and privacy regulations across countries add complexity to global DAO services. Europe’s GDPR, China’s data localization requirements, and U.S. laws like the CLOUD Act may restrict cross-border flows of individual contribution data, potentially hindering the realization of a truly global decentralized organizational economy.
5.2. Technological Maturity and Limitations of Governance Experience
Alongside regulatory barriers, limitations in technological maturity and governance experience must also be considered. Current blockchain infrastructure still struggles to handle the scalability and transaction speed required for global adoption of DAO services. High gas fees and slow transaction processing on Ethereum, along with the relatively lower security and decentralization of other chains, remain barriers to mass adoption. Moreover, general users face a steep learning curve in understanding token economics and participating in governance.
Token price volatility is another technological challenge to overcome in order to minimize its negative impact on organizational stability. If the value of tokens fluctuates too dramatically, it becomes difficult to maintain reliable participation incentives. While solutions like stablecoin-based reward systems or volatility-buffering mechanisms are being developed, time and testing are needed before they can be fully validated.
Furthermore, algorithms for assessing contribution quality and distributing fair rewards are still evolving. In specialized fields such as creative work or investment, nuanced judgments and contextual understanding are crucial, yet current automation technologies struggle to fully capture this complexity. As a result, flawed algorithms may reward low-quality contributions while undervaluing genuine expertise, highlighting the need for continuous improvement.
More fundamentally, there is still a lack of practical experience in decentralized decision-making and governance operations. Managing decision-making processes involving hundreds or thousands of participants, reconciling diverse interests, and resolving conflicts require proven methodologies that are not yet fully developed. Early DAO failures in governance must serve as lessons for learning and improvement, but the trial-and-error process inevitably carries the burden of risks and potential losses.
5.3. Social Transformation Through the Individual-Centric Organizational Economy
Despite these challenges, the fundamental value proposition of DAOs suggests that these barriers will eventually be overcome, leading to an entirely new organizational paradigm. An economy where individuals earn ongoing revenue from their expertise, receive additional rewards for active participation, and exert decision-making influence proportional to their contributions is inherently more fair and efficient than the existing system. Initially, innovative startups and progressive industry communities will adopt DAO structures, but as they demonstrate superior performance and member satisfaction, the model will gradually spread.
The most important aspect of this change is the revolutionary improvement in access to expertise. Knowledge and technology previously restricted to large corporations due to high costs will be made available to SMEs and individuals at far lower prices through token economics. Startups in developing countries could gain access to Silicon Valley expertise, small-town businesses could benefit from global consulting-level strategies, and individual creators could leverage enterprise-grade infrastructure—possibilities that were previously unthinkable.
Even further, this transformation will bring a full convergence of physical organizations and the digital economy. All professional activities, organizational participation, and even everyday individual contributions will gain economic value on the blockchain, turning society itself into a massive decentralized organizational economy. Providing accurate analysis earns reputation tokens, excellent collaboration is rewarded with teamwork incentives, and creative ideas yield innovation dividends—turning every positive organizational action into immediate economic feedback.
Ultimately, DAOs will realize a new model of organizational operation where individual expertise becomes societal infrastructure and everyday collaboration and contributions generate economic value. Human resources across borders and corporations will be integrated into a unified network, enabling humanity to tackle complex global challenges through collective intelligence and decentralized expertise. Issues such as climate change, pandemic prevention, and social inequality will no longer be addressed solely by governments or corporations but solved through self-organizing collaboration among billions of individuals worldwide.
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