Article
The Wyoming DAO LLC: What It Is, and What It Is Not
Wyoming gave DAOs a statutory home in 2021 and a DUNA statute in 2024. What the filing actually is, what the bank will still ask, and where legal work begins.
A filing with a statute behind it
Wyoming was the first U.S. state to give a decentralized autonomous organization a statutory home, as a DAO LLC in 2021 under W.S. 17-31-101 and following. In 2024 it added a separate DUNA statute for decentralized unincorporated nonprofit associations. Those are different vehicles. Marketing copy that uses "DAO" for both is not helping you.
What the DAO LLC filing actually contains
Articles of Organization on the DAO form, a statement that the organization is a decentralized autonomous organization, a public identifier for any managing smart contract if the DAO is algorithmically managed, a registered agent in Wyoming, and one or more members. Smart contracts do not replace the Secretary of State. They do not accept service of process.
What it will not do
It will not make securities law go away. It will not make tax reporting go away. It will not make the people who designed the protocol disappear from a courtroom. It will not create anonymity. Banks running know-your-customer checks will still ask who is behind it. A Wyoming DAO LLC is a legal wrapper with extra fields on the Articles, not a veil of cryptography.
Ordinary LLC, DAO LLC, or DUNA
If you do not actually need on-chain governance, an ordinary Wyoming LLC is usually the cleaner filing: flexible, private at the Secretary of State, and well understood by counterparties. A DAO LLC is for a project that really does run on-chain and needs the U.S. wrapper to say so. A DUNA is a nonprofit association under a different statute. Choosing among them is legal work. Forming the one you chose is corporate work.
What we charge
We form a Wyoming DAO LLC at our published Wyoming LLC rate of $1,495, first-year state fees included, with additional Secretary of State DAO-article requirements billed at cost. Details and checkout are on /wyoming-dao-llc. Tresp Corporate Services is not a law firm. We file the entity. We do not opine on the token.
About this article
This article is general information published by Tresp Corporate Services, LLC. It is not legal, tax, or accounting advice, and Tresp Corporate Services is not a law firm. Statutes, fees, and filing requirements change. Verify anything you intend to rely on with the relevant agency and with your own attorney or accountant. For legal matters we refer to the independent firm Tresp, Day & Associates, Inc.
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