European Central Bank: The decentralization level of DeFi DAO governance tokens may struggle to meet the MiCA exemption standards

According to a report by Cointelegraph, a staff paper from the European Central Bank points out that the governance tokens of DeFi protocols are highly centralized, with about half or more of the holdings of governance tokens for Aave, MakerDAO, Ampleforth, and Uniswap related to the protocol itself or exchanges.

The main voting participants are mostly delegated representatives, and in many cases, these representatives cannot be identified or associated with the token holders. The study questions whether DeFi DAOs have sufficient decentralization to be excluded from the MiCA regulatory framework and provides a reference for policymakers to include relevant entities in regulation.