Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is calling for a fundamental overhaul of decentralized autonomous organizations.
He’s arguing that current DAO designs fail to deliver on their promises.
In an X post this morning, Buterin laid out his vision for fixing these blockchain-based entities through zero-knowledge proofs and artificial intelligence. The goal: create systems that resist the human political weaknesses plaguing today’s DAOs.
“The existing DAO structures often devolve into systems dominated by token-holder voting, which centralizes power,” Buterin wrote.
This token-weighted governance model concentrates decision-making authority among large holders rather than distributing it broadly across communities. It’s the opposite of what DAOs were designed to achieve.
Buterin wants to integrate zero-knowledge proofs into DAO governance to solve this problem. These cryptographic tools let someone prove information is true without revealing the underlying data.
“Zero-knowledge proofs can protect DAOs from privacy breaches and centralizing tendencies,” according to Buterin.
The technology could enable more private voting and decision-making while maintaining the transparency and verifiability that blockchains provide.
Buterin also suggests using AI to combat decision fatigue among DAO participants, though he warned against relying on mainstream AI models. The challenge of maintaining active, informed participation across hundreds or thousands of governance decisions has plagued many DAOs, often resulting in low voter turnout or decisions made by a small, engaged minority.
He identified oracle systems as another critical weakness in current DAO infrastructure.
Oracles connect blockchains to real-world data, but both token-based and human-curated approaches remain inadequate for reliable DAO operations, according to the Ethereum founder. Better oracle systems would be essential for DAOs to interact effectively with off-chain information and events.
The applications go beyond internal governance. Privacy-focused initiatives like AnonDAO already demonstrate how anonymous governance could work in practice.
As these organizations evolve and adopt stronger privacy protections, they could gain actual political influence and legitimacy rather than remaining largely symbolic experiments in decentralized coordination.
Buterin’s critique comes as DAOs manage billions in treasury assets while grappling with persistent questions about efficiency, security, and true decentralization. His proposals suggest the next generation of these organizations will need to combine cutting-edge cryptography and AI to fulfill their founding vision of autonomous, democratically-governed digital institutions.
