Knowledge Atlas · Reference
Glossary & ontology
Terms are defined once and translated with care — terminology must survive translation intact.
D
- DAO
- A decentralised autonomous organisation: a group that coordinates people and funds through smart contracts, usually governed by token-holder votes.
- DAO LLC
- A limited liability company whose management is vested in a decentralised autonomous organisation, as permitted by Wyoming law since 2021.
- Data trust
- A legal structure in which independent trustees manage data on behalf of a group of people, with a fiduciary duty to them.
- Decentralised arbitration
- Dispute resolution run by a blockchain protocol in which crowdsourced jurors, chosen by an automated draw and paid by incentives, decide cases and their rulings are enforced by smart contracts.
- Delegation (transitive)
- In liquid democracy, passing one's vote to a proxy who may pass it on again; revocable at any time.
- Deliberative poll
- A survey of a random sample taken before and after the participants receive balanced information and discuss an issue.
- Democratic confederalism
- A model of self-government in which local assemblies and communes federate into wider councils without a sovereign state, set out by Abdullah Öcalan in 2005 and later adopted by the Kurdish-led administration in northern Syria.
- Devolution
- The transfer of powers from a central government to elected regional bodies within a unitary state, by ordinary law, so that the centre keeps the legal power to change or reverse it.
- Digital identity
- A verifiable electronic credential that lets a person prove who they are online.
- Direct democracy
- A system in which citizens decide on laws and policies themselves, by assembly or referendum, rather than only electing representatives.