It's odd that in breaking down the name 'the DAO' you never mentioned "The DAO" as in "Daoism" aka "Taoism". You say it has a big government vibe, but the first thing I ever thought of was

Taoism, also known as Daoism, is a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin with an emphasis on living in harmony with, and in accordance to the natural flow or cosmic structural order of the universe commonly referred to as the Tao (道, also romanized as Dao).