ECB Report Highlights Centralization in DAO Governance Tokens

A recent working paper from the European Central Bank (ECB), published on March 26, reveals that the top 100 holders possess over 80% of the governance token supply in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) such as Aave, MakerDAO, Ampleforth, and Uniswap. According to NS3.AI, this concentration of token ownership raises questions about the decentralization claims of DAOs. The paper also notes that this centralization poses challenges for regulatory frameworks like the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, which currently excludes fully decentralized services from its scope.