Digitalization of Institutions of Corporate Law: Current Trends and Future Prospects

Digital technologies have been integrated into all aspects of public life, including politics, law, finance, business, education, science, and society. As a result of the use of digital technologies by various subjects, a transformation has occurred of the economic relations existing in society, including corporate relations. This study analyzes the impact of digitalization on individual institutions of corporate law. The authors investigate the following aspects of the digitalization of corporate law: (1) digital legal personality of the corporation (online registration (e-residency) of corporations and the digital footprint that companies leave in public registers); (2) digital corporate governance; and (3) digital (network or decentralized) autonomous organizations. The purpose of this research is to identify trends and directions of transformation of individual institutions of corporate law in a digital society. The authors conclude that the digitalization of institutions of corporate law will result in: (1) the reinterpretation of certain concepts of corporate law, such as corporation and corporate governance; (2) the improvement of the legal mechanisms of corporate governance following the introduction of AI into the collegial executive bodies of corporations; (3) the digitalization of corporate assets; and (4) the emergence of new subjects of corporate and other relevant relations.

Global Research Decentralized Autonomous Organization (GR-DAO): A DAO of Global Researchers

The latest trend in Blockchain formation is to utilize decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) in many verticals. To date, little attention has been given to address the global research domain due to the difficulty in creating a comprehensive framework that can marry the cutting edge of academic grade scientific research with a decentralized governance body of researchers. A global research decentralized autonomous organization (GR-DAO) would have a profound impact on the research community academically, commercially, and the public good. In this paper, we propose the GR-DAO as a global community of researchers committed to collectively creating knowledge and sharing it with the world. Scientific research is the means for knowledge creation and learning. The GR-DAO provides the guidance, community and technological solutions for the evolution of a global research infrastructure and environment. Through its design, the GR-DAO embraces, enhances and extends the model of research, research on decentralization and DAO as a model for decentralised and autonomous organizing. This design, in turn, improves most of the uses for and applications of research for the greater good of society. The paper examines the core motivation, purpose and design of the GR-DAO, its strategy to embrace, enhance and extend the research ecosystem, and the GR-DAO design uses across the DAO ecosystem

A comparative analysis of the platforms for decentralized autonomous organizations in the Ethereum blockchain

Blockchain technology has enabled a new kind of distributed systems. Beyond its early applications in Finance, it has also allowed the emergence of novel new ways of governance and coordination. The most relevant of these are the so-called Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). DAOs typically implement decision-making systems to make it possible for their online community to reach agreements. As a result of these agreements, the DAO operates automatically by executing the appropriate portion of code on the blockchain network (e.g., hire people, delivers payments, invests in financial products, etc). In the last few years, several platforms such as Aragon, DAOstack and DAOhaus, have emerged to facilitate the creation of DAOs. As a result, hundreds of these new organizations have appeared, with their communities interacting mediated by blockchain. However, the literature has yet to appropriately explore empirically this phenomena. In this paper, we aim to shed light on the current state of the DAO ecosystem. We review the three main platforms nowadays (Aragon, DAOstack, DAOhaus) which facilitate the creation and management of DAOs. Thus, we introduce their main differences, and compare them using quantitative metrics. For such comparison, we retrieve data from both the main Ethereum network (mainnet) and a parallel Ethereum network (xDai). We analyze data from 72,320 users and 2,353 DAO communities in order to study the three ecosystems across four dimensions: growth, activity, voting system and funds. Our results show that there are notable differences among the DAO platforms in terms of growth and activity, and also in terms of voting results. Still, we consider that our work is only a first step and that further research is needed to better understand these communities, and evaluate their level of accomplishment in reaching decentralized governance.

Legally Enforceable Smart-Contract Languages

Smart contracts are a key component of today’s blockchains. They are critical in controlling decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO). However, smart contracts are not yet legally binding nor enforceable; this makes it difficult for businesses to adopt the DAO paradigm. Therefore, this study reviews existing Smart Contract Languages (SCL) and identifies properties that are critical to any future SCL for drafting legally binding contracts. This is achieved by conducting a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of white- and grey literature published between 2015 and 2019. Using the SLR methodology, 45 Selected and 28 Supporting Studies detailing 45 state-of-the-art SCLs are selected. Finally, 10 SCL properties that enable legally compliant DAOs are discovered, and specifications for developing SCLs are explored.

Reducing the Risk of Information Security of Subjects of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

The purpose of this work is to reduce the risk of information security of subjects of decentralized autonomous organizations. For this purpose, a mathematical model of the audit of information security of subjects of decentralized autonomous organizations was developed.

A Comparative Analysis of the Adoption of Decentralized Governance in the Blockchain Through DAOs

Blockchain technology has prompted new ways of governance and coordination. Such forms receive the name of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). DAOs typically implement decision-making systems to make possible for the community to reach agreements. As a result of the agreements the DAO automatically operates (e.g., hire people, payments, invest in financial products, etc.) by executing code on the blockchain. In the last few years, several platforms such as Aragon, DAOstack and DAOhaus, have emerged to facilitate the creation of DAOs. As a result, hundreds of this new organizations have appeared and are interacting in the blockchain. However, little is known about them. In this paper, we want to shed light on them. We will review the three main platforms (Aragon, DAOstack, DAOhaus) that make possible to create and manage a DAO. We introduce the main differences between these platforms, and we finally compare them numerically. For the comparison we retrieve data from both the main Ethereum network (mainnet) and a parallel Ethereum network (xDai). We analyze data from 72,320 users from 2,353 DAO communities to study the three ecosystems along four dimensions: growth, activity, voting system and funds. Our results show that there are notable differences among the DAO platforms in terms of growth and activity, but also interms of voting results. Still we consider that our work is only a first step and that further research is needed to better understand these communities and to help them to accomplish their aim of decentralized governance.