05-29, 10:00–10:55 (CET), Flower
Is blockchain based DAO a revolution in governance or is it just a natural form of governance being rediscovered through blockchain? Let’s embark on a journey, where we’ll look into why humans tend to self-organize, and why the invention of blockchain is such a revolution in reshaping the way humans govern themselves.
Network states and nation states are concepts which seem very distant, yet their goals are very similar. They both aim to enable and harness coordination between individuals to decide what public good is and how such defined public good should be maintained.
The goal of this panel is to bring together representatives of both worlds, cyberpunk and public administration, to open up a conversation between seemingly incompatible worlds and explore what we can learn from each other to improve the world we live in.
I am a student, lawyer, DAOist and a web3 evangelist. My goal is to be the catalyst for change. We can do anything if we work together.
Dr. Joachim Schwerin is Principal Economist in the unit in charge of Responsible Business Conduct within the Directorate-General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) of the European Commission. He is responsible for developing the policy approach of DG GROW towards the Token Economy and Distributed-Ledger Technologies as well as their applications for industry and SMEs. His current focus lies on developing positive framework conditions for DAOs and Web3. In the financial domain, he contributed to the Digital Finance Strategy, including the MiCA Regulation, and the preparatory work for the Digital Euro. Previously, he coordinated the European Commission's industrial and competition policies and worked on SME access to finance. Joachim holds a PhD from Dresden University of Technology and was Post-Doc Research fellow at the London School of Economics' Economic History Department before he joined the European Commission in 2001.
Karam Alhamad is the Governance Coordinator at Web3 Foundation, where he supports and coordinates decentralized governance initiatives across the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems. A blockchain evangelist and governance builder, Karam holds a Master’s in Global Affairs from Yale University, where he focused on blockchain and tech governance. He was named an Ethereum Foundation Fellow in 2022, recognizing his work at the intersection of decentralized systems and post-authoritarian resilience.
In 2019, he founded ZeFi, the first Arabic open-source blockchain academy, which has reached over 100,000 learners across the MENA region. His career spans war zones and Web3, from documenting state violence to designing trustless coordination mechanisms. For Karam, DAOs are not just a new mode of organization, they are a political and humanitarian imperative. When institutions collapse, code can become both infrastructure and ideology: a means of survival, resistance, and reimagination.
Puncar is a leading advocate for DAOs as the next evolution of organizations, specializing in governance, coordination, and decentralized decision-making. As co-author of How to DAO, he distills years of DAO research into actionable insights for builders, founders, and organizations exploring onchain governance.
With experience working with pioneering DAOs such as MakerDAO, Gitcoin, and Index Coop, Puncar has played a key role in shaping governance frameworks and meta-governance initiatives. He has also contributed to grants programs for Arbitrum and Polygon and closely follows funding mechanisms like Optimism’s Retroactive Public Goods Funding.
Beyond his work in decentralized governance, Puncar explores the intersection of DAOs and artificial intelligence, analyzing how agentic systems and automation will redefine coordination and governance structures. His expertise spans both theoretical foundations and practical applications, making him a sought-after speaker on the future of governance, human coordination, and the emerging role of AI-driven decision-making within decentralized ecosystems.
Co-founder Tally.xyz, building decentralization since 2011.