Work in Progress

Abstract: Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are collectively governed by token holders based on a set of decision-making rules encoded into smart contracts. DAOs increasingly adopt dual-class governance, in which voting rights are granted by non-transferable tokens that holders acquire by locking their tradable tokens. While the literature finds a positive effect of this design on DAO growth, we show that it comes at a cost to price informativeness. We develop a theoretical model of price formation in DAO token markets where governance participation requires locking part of an informed position, so the capital of the best-informed holders cannot respond to information. Price informativeness falls with the locked share of voter holdings, the loss concentrates where governance participation is high, and it is concave in the locked share. We confirm our predictions using contract-level data, with the locked share reconstructed from 10.9 million on-chain transfers.

Presentations: European DAO Workshop 2025, BTech Conference at Aarhus University, Ph.D days at Aarhus University, seminar at the Department of Finance at the University of Zurich, and seminar in the Blockchain Center at the University of Zurich. 

Abstract: Token-financed ventures move from founder-controlled token offerings to decentralized tokenholder governance. We argue that this decentralization changes the type of agency problem that governance has to suppress. On-chain transparency largely resolves the adverse selection that offering-stage signaling addresses, while moral hazard remains, since voting power can be bought and used against minority tokenholders. Protection against expropriation must therefore be in place before control is handed over. Blockchain makes this commitment possible, as mechanisms that signal quality at the offering stage, once encoded in smart contracts and made non-transferable, become binding constraints on ex post behavior. Integrating the token offering and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) literatures through a systematic review of 176 studies, we identify four governance dimensions through which DAOs constrain agency frictions, namely governance structures, incentive alignment, (de)centralization, and monitoring. Across all four, credibility hinges on the non-transferability of governance tokens. Using novel data on token-class restructurings, we find that adopters of non-transferable governance already had more engaged and sophisticated electorates before switching, exactly where the framework predicts commitment to be least costly.

Presentations: 7th Blockchain ISC, 3rd Nordic-Iberian Doctoral Workshop on Business Economics, Ph.D days at Aarhus University, SBC DAO Workshop (DAO Stanford 2026), and seminar in the Blockchain Center at the University of Zurich 

Abstract: Ethereum blockchain is optimizing for ETH to become digital money by undergoing frequent upgrades to improve its fundamentals, which are market-moving events containing implementation risk, often dividing investors in crypto markets. Understanding these dynamics is crucial as digital assets become increasingly integrated with traditional finance. Employing an event study analysis, I find that investors react predominantly positively to upgrades that directly impact the efficiency of the blockchain, while those associated with the transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake are largely associated with negative average abnormal returns, likely reflecting perceived implementation risk. The findings highlight low market efficiency, driven by the novelty and technical complexity of the upgrades. Sector-specific analysis highlights the interconnectedness of crypto markets via market-wide spillovers.