Major DAOs offer lessons in what works and what does not — study history before repeating mistakes in new protocols.
The 2016 DAO hack raised $150M on Ethereum, was exploited via reentrancy, and led to the ETH/ETC fork. It birthed modern smart contract security awareness and timelock culture.
Recurring lessons: audit before large TVL, timelocks give users exit time, clear proposal processes reduce chaos, and treasury diversification reduces single-asset risk.