ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Blockchain
Sec. Blockchain for Science
Volume 8 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbloc.2025.1641294
Challenges of DAOs in Decentralized Science: A Qualitative Analysis of Expert Interviews
Provisionally accepted
Lukas Weidener*
Leonard L Boltz- BIO.xyz, Zug, Switzerland
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Abstract. This study explores challenges faced by decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) working in decentralized science (DeSci). Ten semi-structured interviews with co-founders, working-group leads, and long-term contributors were analyzed using Kuckartz's six-phase qualitative-content-analysis procedure. Nineteen sub-categories, synthesized under 'governance', 'financials', 'contribution', 'onboarding', 'operations', and 'science', capture tensions between token-weighted decision making and domain expertise, labor-intensive hybrid accounting, persistent talent shortages, steep Web3 onboarding curves, fragmented project coordination, and science-specific challenges such as technology-transfer-office negotiations and tokenization of research assets. The resulting category system provides a diagnostic baseline for understanding how decentralized governance interacts with the methodological rigor of scientific work. The study concludes that DeSci DAOs progress most effectively when blockchain technology-enabled transparency is complemented by clearly defined coordination roles, structured onboarding pathways, and credible mechanisms for scientific validation, thereby balancing experimentation with proven organizational practices.
Keywords: decentralized science (DeSci), decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), Challenges, Expert interviews, qualitative content analyses
Received: 04 Jun 2025; Accepted: 08 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Weidener and Boltz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lukas Weidener, BIO.xyz, Zug, Switzerland
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