DAO as Rhizome: Reimagining Rules, Governance and Organisations

Abstract Blockchain’s disruptive potential finds a compelling expression in decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), which deploy smart contracts to automate core functions and displace traditional forms of governance. This paper offers a critical interrogation of the DAO phenomenon, examining capacity of DAOs to reconfigure organisational structures and challenge entrenched paradigms of human cooperation. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s concept of the rhizome, a dynamic and non-hierarchical network that fosters continuous growth and transformation, it explores how DAOs embody rhizomatic principles through token-based membership, decentralised governance, and global interconnectivity. Yet even if DAOs gesture towards radical democratic possibilities, they are equally saturated with ideological investments that reproduce rather than rupture dominant paradigms. The analysis emphasises the tension between the rhetoric of decentralisation and the often-consolidated realities of power embedded in code and protocol. Situating DAOs within a rhizomatic ontology reveals both their insurgent promise and the structural constraints that temper their emancipatory aspirations. This paper calls for a sustained critique of the normative assumptions and developmental trajectories shaping these emergent organisations.