The Health of DAO Treasuries

Key Insights

• There is about $11 billion locked up in DAO treasuries — 60% of that belongs to the top 15 largest treasuries.
• Omitting the native asset from the treasury reveals how DAOs are diversifying their holdings and reducing risk; however, most DAOs continue to hold a majority of their own tokens.
  

DAO treasuries today cumulatively hold over $11 billion in value. From the start and end of 2021, this number grew 40x. Initially focused on investments and protocol governance, DAO use cases have expanded to include open-source NFT governance, social clubs, and media.

Messari released a report on the health of DAO treasuries last year, and since then, plenty more capital has amassed in this space, prompting an update on how DAOs are diversifying and managing risk.

Like startups, most DAOs continue to be fluid entities. As such, they should have a balanced approach to treasury management — in particular those DAOs that possess a sizable treasury. There are also DAOs that can sprout up to support a larger DAO or fulfill a one-time investment (ConstitutionDAO)

Most protocol treasuries and DAOs today are expected to last beyond one term-investments.  As such, they need to adopt ways to safely diversify and grow their assets to protect themselves and their contributors.