The study, authored by  Julie Saesen, Bastian Kindermann, Darius Abel and Steffen Strese, explores how specific design elements of on-chain governance in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) influence the performance of governance tokens.

The authors find that establishing a minimum token quorum can enhance token performance, whereas voting incentive mechanisms, such as NFTs or additional governance tokens, can lead to negative token performance. Moreover, they identify founders’ stake as a contingent factor moderating these signals.

The article is published open access and can be accessed via the following link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02683962251343627