Affordances and autonomy in practice: nonprofit Chinese DAOs in Web3

This article examines why Chinese Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), a form of community that is prevalent among blockchain users, have developed into distinct nonprofit and public-oriented online communities. Although DAOs are commonly framed as fully automated and egalitarian organizations enabled by blockchain—whose autonomy is by design—drawing on 16 months of hybrid ethnography, this study demonstrated how these communities actively engage with blockchain technology affordances to enact their autonomy in practice within China’s sociopolitical environment and the global blockchain industry. This study began by examining the technological imaginary of “DAOism” inferred from technological features of the blockchain and proposed a taxonomy of Chinese DAOs that reflected their divergent stances toward this imaginary. It then analyzed how DAO members tactically stack Web2 and Web3 technologies to build and sustain their online communities, thereby balancing technological capacities with their goals of transparency and decentralization. Finally, the study illustrated how these DAOs translate the shared lifestyle and collective identity of “digital nomads” into local contexts. This paper shows that Chinese DAOs, as nonprofit online communities, have an asymmetrical relationship with the global blockchain industry. Yet, these communities enact forms of autonomy characterized by reflexivity, locality, and alternative practices.