📝 SummarXiv

Abstract

This report explores the often-overlooked cultural and social dynamics shaping participation and power in DAOs. Drawing on qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations, it shows how factors such as financial privilege, informal gatekeeping, visibility bias, and onboarding structures create barriers to meaningful inclusion. While DAOs are frequently framed as permissionless and egalitarian, the lived experiences of contributors reveal a more complex reality, one in which soft power and implicit norms determine people's position within DAOs. Instead of offering solutionist prescriptions, this report argues for a deeper cultural reflection within the DAO ecosystem. It highlights that decentralisation is not solely a protocol-level feature, but an ongoing social process that requires intentional cultivation of trust, belonging, and epistemic plurality. With this report, we want to sharpen the collective awareness of structural blind spots and call for building more inclusive and culturally conscious decentralised systems.