Dr. Florian Spychiger

Work at ZHAW

Position

Senior Researcher & Lecturer Decentralized Autonomous Organizations & Blockchain

Focus

• Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
• Incentive Systems in Blockchains
• Blockchain Governance
• Agent-based Modelling

Teaching

• BSc Elective Module "Business Value of Blockchain"
• WBK Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) & Metaverse

Experience

• Research Associate Decentralized Autonomous Organizations & Blockchain
  ZHAW
  02 / 2019 - 02 / 2025
• Management Associate
  UZH Blockchain Center
  08 / 2020 - 08 / 2023
• Scientific Assistant SCM & Blockchain
  ZHAW
  02 / 2018 - 01 / 2019
• Working Student Process Automation
  Vontobel
  09 / 2015 - 07 / 2017
• Internship Investment Research
  SG Analytics, Poona, India
  01 / 2015 - 07 / 2015

Education and Continuing education

Education

• PhD Management & Economics / Management & Economics
  University of Zurich
  02 / 2019 - 09 / 2023
• MSc UZH ETH in Quantitative Finance / Finance
  ETH Zurich / University of Zurich
  09 / 2015 - 04 / 2019
• BSc Economics / Economics
  University of Berne
  09 / 2010 - 09 / 2014

Continuing Education

• CAS in Higher & Professional Education
  ZHAW School of Management and Law
  08 / 2023
• Funding for Science and Innovation Projects and Fellowships
  University of Zurich
  05 / 2020
• Project design and grant proposal writing
  University of Zurich
  03 / 2020
• Design thinking
  University of Zurich
  10 / 2019
• Project Management for Researchers
  ZHAW School of Management and Law
  07 / 2019
• Cambridge Proficiency C2
  University of Cambridge
  11 / 2011

Network

Membership of networks

• DAO Suisse
• DIZH Fellows
• UZH Blockchain Center
• ZHAW Digital Futures Lab
• UZH Digital Society Initiative
• Data Innovation Alliance

ORCID digital identifier

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6602-8450

Social media

• LinkedIn
• Personal Webpage

Media presence

• SRF Podcast: Das Haus, das sich selbst verwaltet
• Fokus Swiss: Blockchain als Grundlage des Informationsaustausches

Projects

• Agentic AI for DAOs / Deputy project leader / ongoing
• Decentralised Decision-Making in DAOs: Learnings for Digital Democracy / Co-project leader / ongoing
• Exploring Decentralized Governance for NPOs / Co-project leader / completed
• Data Center at Home / Deputy project leader / completed
• Collaborative networks: The evolution of project work in a digital world with DAOs / Deputy project leader / completed
• Inno Booster Blockchain Breezing / Project leader / completed
• Self-organization as a driver of e-participation: DAOs and their potential for social participation / Deputy project leader / completed
• Tokenomics framework for the governance of decentralised autonomous organisations / Project leader / completed
• A Tool for Prototyping Decentralized Autonomous Organizations / Project leader / completed
• Inno Booster Blockchain FTWinnerdApp / Project leader / completed
• Inno Booster Blockchain DMRV Biogas / Deputy project leader / completed
• DAO Radar Switzerland / Project leader / completed
• DAOify - Decentralized Autonomous Organizations / Deputy project leader / completed
• MetaRoom / Project leader / completed
• RightFootForward – Innovative business model with the possibility to donate based on blockchain technology / Co-project leader / completed
• Build-Your-Own DAO – Designing and Implementing a Decentralized Autonomous Organization / Co-project leader / completed
• no1s1 – A house owned by no one but itself / Project leader / completed
• Blockchain Technology in Interorganizational Collaboration / Deputy project leader / completed
• A Governance Framework for the Swiss Blockchain Ecosystem / Co-project leader / completed
• Supernodes in the dHealth Network / Team member / completed
• Decentralized Registration and Trading Platform for Emission Certificates / Co-project leader / completed
• Expert Group of the Swiss Alliance for Data-intensive (NTN-Network) / Deputy project leader / completed

Publications

Articles in scientific journal, peer-reviewed

• Blum, M. et al. (2025) 'Governance and maintenance for DAOs with physical assets : the case of No1s1', Blockchain: Research and Applications, 7(4), p. 100357. doi: 10.1016/j.bcra.2025.100357.
• Lustenberger, M. et al. (2025) 'DAO research trends : reflections and learnings from the first European DAO workshop (DAWO)', Applied Sciences, 15(7), p. 3491. doi: 10.3390/app15073491.
• Lustenberger, M., Küng, L. and Spychiger, F. (2025) 'Designing community governance : learnings from DAOs', The journal of the British Blockchain Association, 8(1). doi: 10.31585/jbba-8-1-(4)2025.
• Lustenberger, M. et al. (2025) 'DAOs as property owners : a conceptual exploration from the perspective of organizational system theory', Journal of Organization Design, 14(2), pp. 127–143. doi: 10.1007/s41469-025-00186-4.
• Lustenberger, M. and Spychiger, F. (2025) 'Blockchain in supply chains : an unfulfilled promise', Supply Chain Management, 30(2), pp. 178–194. doi: 10.1108/SCM-03-2024-0192.
• Li, S.-N., Spychiger, F. and Tessone, C. J. (2023) 'Reward distribution in proof-of-stake protocols : a trade-off between inclusion and fairness', IEEE Access, 11, pp. 134136–134145. doi: 10.1109/access.2023.3336418.
• Spychiger, F. et al. (2023) 'Organizing projects with blockchain through a decentralized autonomous organization', Project Leadership and Society, 4(100102). doi: 10.1016/j.plas.2023.100102.
• Schädler, L., Lustenberger, M. and Spychiger, F. (2023) 'Analyzing decision-making in blockchain governance', Frontiers in Blockchain, 23(6). doi: 10.3389/fbloc.2023.1256651.
• Spychiger, F. et al. (2022) 'Incentivizing data quality in blockchain-based systems : the case of the digital cardossier', Distributed Ledger Technologies, 1(1). doi: 10.1145/3538228.
• Li, C., Spychiger, F. and Tessone, C. J. (2022) 'The miner's dilemma with migration : the control effect of solo-mining', IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, 20(3), pp. 2760–2770. doi: 10.1109/TNSM.2022.3232183.
• Lustenberger, M., Malešević , S. and Spychiger, F. (2021) 'Ecosystem readiness : blockchain adoption is driven externally', Frontiers in Blockchain, 4(720454). doi: 10.3389/fbloc.2021.720454.
• Spychiger, F., Tasca, P. and Tessone, C. J. (2021) 'Unveiling the importance and evolution of design components through the "tree of blockchain"', Frontiers in Blockchain, 3(613476). doi: 10.3389/fbloc.2020.613476.
• Malešević, S., Lustenberger, M. and Spychiger, F. (2020) 'Applying distributed ledger concepts to a Swiss regional label ecosystem', Logistics, 4(32). doi: 10.3390/logistics4040032.

Book chapters, peer-reviewed

• Spychiger, F., Lustenberger, M. and Küng, L. (2025) 'Decision-making in decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)', in Themistocleous, M. (ed.) Handbook of blockchain technology. Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 142–163. doi: 10.4337/9781803922805.00020.
• Lustenberger, M., Spychiger, F. and Taylor, M. (2019) 'Optimierung des Supply Chain Informationsaustauschs mit Blockchain-Startups', in Digitalisierung in der Praxis : so schaffen KMU den Weg in die Zukunft. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 209–221. doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-26137-5_14.

Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed

• Lustenberger, M., Spychiger, F. and Küng, L. (eds) (2025) Decentralized autonomous organizations – governance, technology, and legal perspectives : proceedings of the 2nd European DAO Workshop (DAWO), Zürich, Switzerland, 2025, 2nd European DAO Workshop (DAWO), Zurich, Switzerland, 23-24 June 2025. Cham: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-03273-7.
• Spychiger, F. et al. (2025) 'Requirements and benefits of a DAO tokenomics framework', in 2025 Crypto Valley Conference (CVC). IEEE, pp. 81–85. doi: 10.1109/CVC65719.2025.00016.
• Küng, L., Lustenberger, M. and Spychiger, F. (2024) 'Decision-making in a more-than-human world', in Blockchain Kaigi, Zurich, Switzerland, 12-13 September 2024.
• Spychiger, F. et al. (2024) 'Governance and maintenance for a DAO with physical assets : an agent-based model', in 2024 IEEE International Conference on Omni-layer Intelligent Systems (COINS). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/COINS61597.2024.10622115.
• Lustenberger, M., Spychiger, F. and Küng, L. (2024) 'Designing a decentralized autonomous organization', in ECIS 2024 Proceedings. Association for Information Systems. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2024/track16_fintech/track16_fintech/6/.
• Caviezel, M., Spychiger, F. and Stallone, V. (2024) 'Aspects for implementations of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) in Switzerland', in Rocha, A. et al. (eds) Information Systems and Technologies. Cham: Springer, pp. 366–376. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-45648-0_36.
• Martignoni, J. et al. (2023) 'Decentralizing project management by a DAO : a first attempt', in 23rd EURAM Annual Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 14-16 June 2023.
• Spychiger, F. and Lustenberger, M. (2022) 'Decision-making in blockchains', in 22nd EURAM Annual Conference, Winterthur, Switzerland, 15-17 June 2022. ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-25564.
• Li, C., Spychiger, F. and Tessone, C. J. (2021) 'The miner's dilemma with migration', in Proceedings 2021 of the 3rd Conference on Blockchain Research & Applications for Innovative Networks and Services. IEEE, pp. 97–104. doi: 10.1109/BRAINS52497.2021.9569793.
• Lustenberger, M., Spychiger, F. and Malešević, S. (2020) 'Towards a better understanding of the value of blockchains in supply chain management', in Information Systems : 16th European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern Conference, Proceedings. Cham: Springer, pp. 101–112. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-44322-1_8.
• Zavolokina, L. et al. (2018) 'Incentivizing data quality in blockchains for inter-organizational networks : learning from the digital car dossier', in ICIS 2018 Proceedings. Association for Information Systems. doi: 10.5167/uzh-157909.

Other publications

• Ballandies, M. C. et al. (2026) DAO-enabled decentralized physical AI : a new paradigm for human-machine collaboration. arXiv. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2605.04522.
• Lustenberger, M. et al. (2024) Mastering DAOs : a practical guidebook for building and managing decentralized autonomous organizations. 2nd revised edition. Winterthur: ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-2543.
• Lustenberger, M. et al. (2024) DAO research trends : reflections and learnings from the first European DAO Workshop (DAWO). SSRN. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.4944742.
• Zavolokina, L., Spychiger, F. and Schwabe, G. (2021) Leitfaden Blockchain in der kantonalen Verwaltung Zürich. Kanton Zürich Staatskanzlei digitale Verwaltung und E-Government. Available at: https://www.zh.ch/content/dam/zhweb/bilder-dokumente/themen/politik-staat/kanton/digitale-verwaltung-und-e-government/projekte_digitale_transformation/blockchain_leitfaden_final.pdf.
• Spychiger, F., Tasca, P. and Tessone, C. (2020) The tree of blockchain. Rochester: SSRN. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3707260.
• Lustenberger, M. and Spychiger, F. (2019) 'Blockchain als Grundlage des Informationsaustausches', Fokus Swiss. Available at: https://fokus.swiss/2019/07/03/blockchain-als-grundlage-des-informationsaustausches/.

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