Cryptocurrency and blockchain are no longer abstract words. These are two notions that many of us can clearly define and use almost daily. Cryptocurrency trends and blockchain technology have brought many new opportunities and innovations, making businesses and individuals aware of the potential of blockchain technology as DeFi and other advancements emerge. 

Cryptocurrency trends continue to evolve along with new DAO tokens and DAO projects. People are getting more interested in the privileges granted by decentralised finance and the role of DAOs in their lives. We can use DAO crypto tokens for many purposes, including NFTs, fundraising, charity, investment, etc. The use of DAO tokens primarily depends on the DAO projects to which they belong. This article discusses what DAO is in crypto and provides the top 10 DAO crypto projects list worthy of your investment in 2022 and beyond.

What is DAO in crypto?

DAO is a decentralised autonomous organisation in which a group of people agrees to follow certain rules to reach common goals. All DAO members are on board with the organisation, which can have any goal. Due to the 'decentralised' nature of such organisations, there is no central governing authority. All DAO members operate on a flattened hierarchy and have equal stakes. No single person owns or controls the entire organisation. DAOs are fully online-based and use blockchain technology as a ledger to record decisions.

Benefits of DAOs

DAOs have many advantages over traditional platforms. Some of the main DAO benefits include:

• Unlike traditional organisations, DAOs only need codes to operate them. DAOs are commonly heavily tested before they launch. After such projects become publicly available, all further changes should be approved by internet communities to ensure total transparency.
• DAOs lack hierarchical structures. By owning native tokens, stakeholders can present and vote for innovative ideas that the entire team can consider and approve.
• The transparent voting system facilitates the procedure of approving or disapproving any kind of changes stakeholders suggest to apply to DAOs. Using smart contracts, DAO members can easily find the best solutions to solve internal issues whenever they occur. 

Best DAO crypto list

The DAO projects below feature examples of DAO tokens worth investing in. Different decentralised autonomous organisations serve various purposes, like media, social good, grant-making and more. A wide choice of DAO projects might complicate things when you need to find the best DAO crypto tokens, so we offer our top choices in the following DAO list.

0x DAO

Our list of DAO projects would be incomplete without 0x DAO. 0x DAO was launched in April 2021, when 0x decided to switch to the DAO governance model. It is an open protocol enabling peer-to-peer assets exchange over the Ethereum blockchain. 0x DAO mainly focuses on maintaining the community treasury funds, which token holders manage to drive positive changes in the DAO ecosystem.

0x DAO is an autonomous crypto exchange working through open-source smart contracts. ZRX is the governance token of the 0x DAO project. At the time of writing this DAO crypto list (29/08/2022), 0x's price was $0.293727, with a daily trading volume of $14,691,644. It ranked #114 on CoinMarketCap, with a live market cap of $248,932,550, a circulating supply of 847,496,055 ZRX coins and a maximum supply of 1,000,000,000 ZRX coins.

Aave DAO

Aave is another big name on our DAO crypto list. Aave's DeFi protocol lets users manage crypto ecosystems and create decentralised applications. 

Aave is one of the best DAO crypto projects for managing an innovative money market. It is an open-source platform offering many debt-based products in a decentralised manner. The Aave DAO project was developed on the Ethereum blockchain. It supports Ether, stablecoins, and ERC-20 tokens. The Aave DAO project lets users earn passive income on their digital assets by locking them in liquidity pools. 

The project's governance token, AAVE, provides privileges for managing and developing the Aave ecosystem. As on 29 August 2022, the Aave price was $80.77, with a daily trading volume of $115,035,392. The token ranked #45 on CoinMarketCap ranking is #45, with a market cap of $1,130,472,129, a circulating supply of 13,995,602 AAVE coins and a maximum supply of 16,000,000 AAVE coins.

Aragon

Aragon comes next on this DAO crypto list. The project focuses on helping others establish their own DAOs. Aragon DAO lets clients connect with anybody anywhere within a DAO infrastructure. 

The DAO project has a native token, ANT. It enables token holders to express their opinion on the choices influencing operations within the Aragon DAO project. The holders can also create or join Aragon-based DAOs using the token. Besides, the Aragon Fundraising project encourages DAO members to collect fundraising for their organisation. 

At the time of writing this list of DAO projects (29/08/2022), Aragon had a circulating supply of 39,609,522.81 ANT. Priced at $1.54, with a 24-hour trading volume of $9,048,619, the ANT token ranked #327 on CoinMarketCap.

BitDAO

BitDAO is a unique ecosystem that has attracted the support of such big-name investors as the Founders Fund and Bybit, a Singapore-based crypto derivatives exchange that committed 0.025% of its trading volume to BitDAO. BitDAO is the biggest DeFi treasury in the world, with about $2.5 billion in investments in different DeFi projects.

The future of this DAO project seems to be quite promising as it ventures into DeFi investments. BitDAO is currently focused on creating tools that can use the DAO treasury for staking, lending and other activities.

BIT is the project's native token. As of 29 August 2022, the token's price was $0.546485, with a daily trading volume of $53,150,868. It ranked #210 on CoinMarketCap, with a market cap of $1,126,232,908, a circulating supply of 2,060,868,173 BIT coins, and a maximum supply of 10,000,000,000 BIT coins.

Compound

The Compound DAO project also made our DAO list. It is a DeFi project offering users crypto lending solutions and passive income. A compound loan enables users to borrow money using collateral, like Bitcoin. Compound cannot be censored because it is an Ethereum-based application. Still, anyone in the world can access it. The project features a thoroughly audited code to run all calculations.

The Compound project enables developers to unlock finance applications using algorithm-based interest rates. Everyone who owns the utility token, COMP, is given the right to participate in the decision-making process within the government ecosystem. The COMP token has gained a formidable reputation among DAO tokens as its price has gone up.

When writing this DAO token list (29/08/2022), the COMP token's price was $45.40, with a daily trading volume of $105,985,451. The token ranked #97 on CoinMarketCap, with a live market cap of $327,805,917 and a circulating supply of 7,220,035 COMP tokens.

Curve DAO

The next notable highlight on the DAO crypto projects list brings Curve DAO into the spotlight. It is a decentralised stablecoin trading platform using the native CRV token. The Curve DAO project introduced its native token in mid-2020 to manage on-chain governance. The token is available for purchase through many popular crypto exchange platforms, including Binance. 

When writing this DAO crypto list (29/08/2022), the Curve DAO token's price was $1.02, with a daily trading volume of $92,513,529. The token ranked #69 on CoinMarketCap, with a market cap of $533,245,831, a circulating supply of 524,904,341 CRV coins, and a maximum supply of 3,303,030,299 CRV coins.

Dash

Dash is another example of the best DAO crypto projects, which can become the driving factor for the future of DeFi. Dash DAO is a decentralised crypto payment project aiming to provide faster transactions than Bitcoin. 

The project's native token, DASH, has shown sustainable growth recently. As of 29 August 2022, the Dash price was $44.77, with a daily trading volume of $80,718,343. The current CoinMarketCap ranking is #73, with a live market cap of $487,494,447.

The Dash DAO project has been capitalising on exceptional prospects for growth, especially with a high demand for anonymous transactions.

Decred

Decred is another example of top DAO crypto projects. Unlike many other DAOs, Decred is a blockchain on its own. It uses a hybrid consensus mechanism that combines PoW and PoS protocols. It allows the network to avoid the dominance of large stakeholders. Decred allows members to buy tickets and participate in the governance. Decred uses the power of the DAO concept to give the community members the voting right and participate in future DAO projects using the native token.

DCR is a native crypto token of the Decred DAO project. As of 29 August 2022, the token's price was $28.12, with a daily trading volume of $2,646,493. DCR ranked #82 on CoinMarketCap, with a market cap of $402,245,885, a circulating supply of 14,304,565 DCR coins and a maximum supply of 21,000,000 DCR coins.

Maker DAO

Our first mention on the best DAO crypto projects list refers to Maker. The project focuses on introducing real-world assets into the crypto domain. Their biggest goal is to evolve into the largest central bank for DeFi.

During the last year's platform's governance token vote, the MKR holders voted to use tokenised versions for agricultural real estate, shipping invoices, and short-term trade receivables. In collaboration with Centrifuge, the MakerDAO token expands its reach in the crypto world by facilitating the onboarding process of real-world assets.

With a market cap of $157,468,693, the DAO Maker token is priced at $1.74 and ranks #150 on CoinMarketCap (as of 29/08/2022).

Uniswap DAO

In September 2020, after Uniswap introduced its governance UNI token, one of the world's most popular decentralised exchanges became an influential DAO. After reducing trading fees for some stablecoin swaps, Uniswap's volume rose dramatically. This is largely because users migrated from other DeFi projects to Uniswap DAO.

UNI is the native token of Uniswap DAO. When writing this DAO crypto projects list, the token's price was $6.07, with a 24-hour trading volume of $122,970,715. It ranked #19 on CoinMarketCap, with a market cap of $4,528,024,837, a circulating supply of 745,583,613 UNI coins, and a maximum supply of 1,000,000,000 UNI coins.

Investment DAO

Investment DAOs are projects where crypto-rich buyers come together to support startups or make their capital work based on governance rights enforced through smart contracts. An investment DAO is a decentralised autonomous organisation that raises and invests capital into assets on behalf of the community. Investment DAOs use the power of Web3 to democratise the process.

Such projects commonly have their native tokens, which you can find listed on cryptocurrency exchanges. Using smart contracts, the communities agree upon rules and governance rights (voting), which can be prorated based on the members' holdings in the DAO.

Is DAO a good investment?

Investment decisions depend on many factors, including investors' risk appetite, financial condition, time horizon, etc. There is no correct answer to this question because different people have different expectations. However, you can think of answers to several fundamental questions that should help you drive investment decisions.

1. How to measure DAO performance? Corporations are commonly measured by their annual profit, returns on invested capital, quarterly earnings growth, etc. These metrics can depend on unit cost, product quality, and other factors related to specific DAO projects.
2. Strong and weak points of a particular DAO project. The success of an organisation is identified by the unique strengths possessed by the DAO project. Is the project positioned to leverage these as well?
3. What opportunities and threats can the investor potentially face when supporting a certain DAO project?

The best DAO crypto projects discussed in this article have different functionalities and roles that should make a difference during DeFi adoption in the long run. Every project has a native DAO token providing the participants with voting power. Each of these tokens has its price, history, and trends. By clearly understanding crypto trends and market dynamics in general, you can define what DAO crypto projects are worthy of your investments.