A DAO is an online community that jointly control a cryptocurrency wallet to pursue common goals, such as running a business or charity.
Decentralized Autonomous Organization. The term was coined by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin in his 2014 article.
Ethereum is a cryptocurrency network that allows tokens to be exchanged between wallets, and 'smart contracts' to be written to control transactions. Transactions on Ethereum are paid in the native $ETH token and usually denominated in 'gwei', which is 0.000000001 $ETH.
A smart contract is a piece of software that will execute a transaction or an event on a cryptocurrency network if prerequisites defined in the contract are satisfied. They are the building blocks of DAOs.
Ethereum was the first cryptocurrency network that enabled people to build DAOs. The majority of DAOs are on Ethereum but other networks such as Polkadot, Cosmos, EOS & Cardano all enable DAO formation.
Yes, a DAO is a software application, written specifically to run on cryptocurrency networks.
Yes, a DAO can be built on any cryptocurrency network with smart contract capabilities, such as Polkadot, Cosmos, EOS & Cardano.
Sometimes 'DAO' is used to refer to the actual software smart contracts that control the application and at other times to refer collectively to the members of the organization.
Not at all, every DAO has an extended ecosystem of marketing, design, education, and community management so everyone with transferrable skills can contribute and add value.