DAO Symposium 2022

Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are a new and revolutionary form of organizations that manage assets and activities with smart contracts on a blockchain. In the early days of Ethereum, a DAO called “the DAO” was able to gather 14 percent of the total supply of Ethereum tokens worth about USD 150 million at the time. The subsequent hack of “the DAO” led to a temporary halt in the development of DAOs.

In the last years, however, DAOs have seen a renaissance and they are back on the floor. As compared to “the DAO”, their designs have much more matured. Today, DAOs are active in numerous business areas. From venture capital to reforestation, from managing a decentralized exchange to collecting (NFT-) art or even for buying the constitution of the United States of America, DAOs cover a plethora of use cases and continue to question traditional organizational designs. We don’t know yet which business cases will be successful, but DAOs are here to stay!

What are the drivers and challenges of this new form of organization? Find out at the DAO Symposium on the 29th of November 2022 at Trust Square in Zürich. The symposium gives an overview of legal and regulatory pitfalls of DAOs, presented by Romedi Ganzoni, senior associate at MME Legal, lecturer, blockchain and fintech enthusiast. Isla Munro-Hochmayr, founder at FTW DAO and collaborator in multiple other DAOs, talks about her experiences with DAOs and tries to answer the question “Are DAOs the future of organization?”.

Don’t miss out and register soon as ticket numbers are limited!

Isla Munro-Hochmayr
Isla is the co-founder of FTW DAO, a social and venture DAO ecosystem with the goal of funding diverse founders globally. She was previously part of a seed stage VC fund investing in CEE & Baltics and has worked in and around finance and impact for the past 10 years. She’s passionate about innovating on financial models and systems, and takes an interest in organisation design, mental health, future of work, in particular web3 models for impact.

Romedi Ganzoni
As a specialist in financial market law, Romedi advises nationally and internationally oriented companies from the technology and financial sectors on regulatory matters. After having worked as a lawyer in traditional banking for an international law firm Romedi is representing and advising clients with crypto projects at MME, the leading Swiss law firm in crypto, for over six years. In addition to his engagement as a “Crypto-Lawyer” he often holds webinars and lectures, publishes in his practice areas, and is regularly invited as a panelist.

Michael Lustenberger
Michael is a Research Associate & Lecturer at the Institute for Organizational Viability, ZHAW, where he teaches Supply Chain and Operations Management, Digital Strategy and Blockchain for Business Applications. Previously, he worked internationally as a supply chain manager and an operations manager. He is a co-leader of the expert group ‘Blockchain Technology in Interorganisational Collaboration’ at the Data Innovation Alliance. His areas of expertise and research interests include Blockchain Technologies in Supply Chain Management, Industry 4.0 & Digital Transformation and Supply Chain Management.

Florian Spychiger
Florian Spychiger received his MSc. in Quantitative Finance jointly by the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. He currently works and teaches as a research associate at the Zurich University of Applied Science on novel applications of Blockchains. As a PhD student at the UZH Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technologies Group, he conducts research on incentives in blockchain systems under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Claudio J. Tessone. Florian analyses existing incentives in blockchain protocols and in blockchain applications and designs new incentive systems. Specific research topics include consensus design, decentralized autonomous organizations and blockchain governance.