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description: But first, what is a DAO?
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# DAOs

A decentralized autonomous organizations (or a DAO) is a collective managed by its members with a shared mission whose rules are enforced in various degrees by self-executing blockchain software (smart contracts). Since these organizations are run with smart contracts, they inherit many of the properties potentially inherent in cypto/blockchain; they could be decentralized, trustless, censorship resistant, digital, and global. \
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DAOs can be used in a wide range of use cases. Some current popular ones include:

* Protocol DAOs: community protocol management
  * Ex: Compound DAO, MakerDAO, ENS DAO
* Investment DAOs: collective investing
  * Ex: Meta Cartel, Flamingo DAO
* Service DAOs: freelancer networks
  * Ex: Developer DAO
* Grant-giving DAO: collective public goods funding
  * Ex: Gitcoin
* Social DAO: social club with a crypto treasury
  * Ex: Friends with Benefits
* Media DAO: community run mass communication
  * Ex: Bankless DAO
* NFT Community DAO: collective management of a NFT collection ecosystem
  * Ex: MegaDAO, ApeCoin DAO, NounsDAO

This is just a taste of the types of DAOs out there. Here are some great resources where you can learn more about specific DAOs:&#x20;

* DAOHQ - a DAO marketplace: [https://www.daohq.co/](https://www.daohq.co/)
* Embark - a DAO/web3 community learning platform: [https://embark.career/](https://embark.career/)
* DeepDAO - a DAO data platform: [https://deepdao.io/organizations](https://deepdao.io/organizations)

