Research Policy 2026

Collusion-proof decentralized autonomous organizations

Alexander Braun^1,2; Niklas Haeusle³

¹ University of St.Gallen · ² University of Applied Sciences St. Gallen · ³ Leipzig University of Applied Sciences

Abstract

A first-order design task in blockchain-based decentralized autonomous organizations is to ensure that malicious actors are sanctioned. We show that, when voters act strategically and the system is insufficiently decentralized, payoff-matching bribes undermine the sanctioning of malicious actors under conventional governance. Our framework formalizes DAO voting mechanisms and lets us identify those that mitigate the problem. Stochastic voting decouples a tokenholder’s influence from the voting behavior of others. Thus, bribery-proofness can be restored in the presence of sufficiently centralized governance tokenholders. Alternatively, masked voting increases resilience against bribery. Our work contributes to the broader debate on the merits and pitfalls of decentralization and highlights the need to align governance mechanisms with the degree of decentralization in blockchain networks.

DOI

10.1016/j.respol.2026.105509

Sources

openalex

Cite

APA 7 MLA 9 Chicago (author–date) Harvard Elsevier Harvard (JFE, JBF…) The Accounting Review Academy of Management American Marketing Association INFORMS (Management Science) Copy citation Copied ✓