Stanford's Jeff Strnad Joins Q International Foundation to Tackle DAO Governance Issues

Professor Jeff Strnad from Stanford University has joined the Economic Advisory Panel of Q International Foundation, a not-for-profit organization behind the Q Protocol. This collaboration aims to address the pressing governance challenges faced by Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs).

DAOs face a fundamental dilemma: they need to be decentralized, but decentralization often leads to negative side effects such as the absence of leadership, slow decision-making, and lack of accountability. These issues have resulted in most DAOs failing to meet expectations, with many becoming outright failures.

In a recent paper, Professor Strnad proposes a novel solution to these issues through a 'contestable control approach.' This framework allows DAOs to remain decentralized while ensuring efficient and effective management. The essence of this approach is that control of the DAO is continuously available to the highest bidder. Successful bidders are rewarded for the value they add, and DAO token holders benefit from an increase in the DAO token's price.

Q International Foundation aims to create a prototype implementation of the contestable control framework, leveraging the Q Protocol's capabilities to enforce necessary conditions that cannot be addressed by smart contract code alone.

Professor Strnad explains, "DAOs have immense potential, but they often struggle with decentralization leading to inefficiencies and lack of accountability. The contestable control approach provides a potential solution that ensures that DAOs can be both decentralized and effectively managed. I am excited that Q International Foundation is interested in putting this idea into practice. The Q Protocol with its in-built ability to enforce non-deterministic rules is an ideal platform for testing this novel approach to DAO governance. I am looking forward to serving as advisor to Q International Foundation with respect to this project as well as others."

Martin Schmidt, a key contributor to the Q Protocol, commented, "Professor Strnad's approach to DAO governance aligns perfectly with Q's mission to advance decentralized governance beyond the limitations of code-is-law. We aim to set a new standard for DAOs, ensuring they are not only decentralized but also accountable, effective, and efficient."

Professor Jeff Strnad is the Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, where he teaches various courses on blockchain and cryptocurrencies, including blockchain governance. His research spans taxation, public finance, finance, and empirical analysis. He has published leading works on the taxation of financial instruments and the application of Bayesian empirical methods to law.

Before joining Stanford Law School in 1997, Professor Strnad was a professor of law and economics at the California Institute of Technology and the John B. Milliken Professor of Taxation at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

Q International Foundation is located in Liechtenstein and supports and grows decentralized applications and ecosystems. It is the initiator of the Q Protocol, a novel blockchain protocol that acts as a fundamental governance layer in Web3. The Q Protocol combines the benefits of a public, open, and decentralized ledger with the transparency and predictability of enforceable private contracts, enabling adoption by many use cases that require scalability and dependability.