Hybrid event | Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon | Monday, 27 April 2026 – 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

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Since its inception, the Lisbon DAO Observatory has sought to investigate and gather perspectives on various aspects of the regulation of decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs). Among the points analysed, one fundamental question stands out: would it be appropriate for the legislator to create a legal framework that recognises the possibility of DAOs acquiring legal personality? If so, how should such a regime be structured?

In the absence of such a framework, the activities and governance of structures such as DAOs will continue to be subject to subsidiary legal frameworks that may prove unsuited to their structure and purpose.

In this first DAO Talk, the Lisbon DAO Observatory proposes to address this controversial issue and gather various perspectives in a roundtable format and structured in two parts, separating the diagnosis from the regulatory architecture.

The first roundtable will discuss the ‘if’, i.e., whether it is necessary or desirable (both in abstract terms and specifically in the European space) to create a legal framework that allows the incorporation of a new type of legal entity designed for the needs of DAOs (as was done with limited liability companies in the 19th century). We want to bring together different perspectives, both those that affirm this need and relevance and those that are more sceptical; we want to look at examples of legal systems that have already done so and why they have not been successful; and we want to know why much of the industry has no appetite for such regimes and prefers to use other legal wrappers. To that end, that roundtable will be composed of José Nuno Sousa Pinto, a Web3 lawyer with a decade of experience in handling complex matters in DAOs; to hear the industry's perspective, Dr. Nick Almond, Head of Governance at Jito DAO; and to argue for the pertinence of a predictable legal framework that would give DAOs the possibility to obtain legal personality, Professor Daniel Ostrovski from our partner the Institute for Law and Digitalisation of the University of Marburg in Germany. This roundtable will be moderated by António Garcia Rolo, co-Principal Investigator at the Lisbon DAO Observatory.

In a second roundtable, we will look at the ‘how’ – assuming that, in the medium term, we may be faced with proposals for legal frameworks that provide for the possibility of establishing a new type of legal entity more in line with the needs of DAOs, the speakers will present their perspectives on the form and content of such a regime – whether the European legislator should take the initiative through a Regulation or a Directive or if waiting for a wider international model law would be more adequate, which pre-existing models it should be based on, and which rules should be mandatory and which should be optional or default. To that end we will have an elite roundtable composed of PhD economist Joachim Schwerin; one of the mentors of the DAO COALA Model Law and renowed specialist in decentralised governance Silke Noa; the Executive Director of the European Ethereum Institute Marina Markezic; and Anne-Grace Kleczewski, a lawyer with extensive experience in dealing with DAOs and other decentralised arrangements. Thie roundtable will be moderated by Bianca Kremer, post-Doc researcher at ZIBR and a renowed blockchain law academic and lawyer, with extensive research experience in decentralisation.

The aim is to foster a rigorous debate geared towards concrete contributions, which will subsequently be published in summary form in a DAO Talk Brief on our website.