Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) have been hailed as a way to democratize governance of projects, including many innovative blockchain initiatives across Africa. In a DAO, token holders collectively make decisions, ideally giving communities direct control. However, the classic DAO model – typically based on “one token, one vote” – often falls short of true democracy. In practice it can create a plutocracy, where those with the most tokens (i.e. the most money) dominate decisions.