Theodor Beutel

I study how decentralised organisations govern themselves, and whether they can do so democratically.

I work for the Ethereum Foundation Academic Secretariat where I coordinate academic research and contribute to questions of governance design, open source and European digital sovereignty. I also contribute to the project "Decentralised Decision-Making in DAOs: Learnings for Digital Democracy" at the Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau (ZDA), University of Zurich.

Throughout 2018–2023, I was Governance Lead at Safe, a Gnosis spin-out and VitaDAO, an early DeSci DAO, contributed to Colony, DAOstack's Genesis DAO, DAO Incubator, Bundesblock, and explored the use of blockchain in international development cooperation at GIZ Blockchain Lab.

Whether you are a researcher, practitioner, user, policymaker, journalist or simply interested in a conversation, I would be glad to hear from you.