July 26, 2022 / Unchained Daily / Laura Shin
Daily Bits✍️✍️✍️
- Voyager called FTX’s proposal to offer liquidity to customers a “low ball bid dressed up as a white knight rescue” in a Sunday filing.
- A US stablecoin bill has been delayed by negotiations.
- Tether, Bitfinex, and Hypercore launched Holepunch, a communications platform for building web3 applications.
- Chia Network is reissuing tokens due to a security vulnerability in the original token standard.
- The crypto lobbying industry grew 17% in Q2.
- Moonbeam, a Polkadot parachain, now allows users to swap between Polkadot and Cosmos assets.
- Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is suing Bloomberg’s Hong Kong publisher Modern Media CL over defamation claims after an article said CZ is running a ponzi scheme.
Today in Crypto Adoption…
- Digital asset investment products saw an inflow for the fourth straight week.
- NFT platform Sorare signed a deal with Lega Serie A, Italy’s top soccer league.
- Barclays is expected to invest millions of dollars into crypto custodian Copper.
- Chipotle is giving out $200,000 in crypto in a “buy the dip” promotion.
The $$$ Corner…
- Aptos, an L1 blockchain founded by former Meta employees, raised $150 million in a funding round led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto.
- Tesla recorded a $64 million gain on its Q2 sale of BTC.
What Do You Meme?
What’s Poppin’?
Let’s Talk About Lido DAO Drama
Yesterday, Lido DAO voted “No” on a proposal that would’ve seen 10 million LDO tokens accounting for 1% of the token’s total supply (worth roughly $14.5 million) sold to Dragonfly Capital.
Overall, the voting ended with 43 million LDO, or 66%, of tokens voting no and 21 million LDO tokens, or 33%, voting yes. Interestingly, while 609 users voted, 20.6 million of the ~21 million LDO votes that voted “Yes” came from just two entities.
The vote concludes part of a contentious governance proposal regarding treasury diversification in the Lido governance forum. According to the original post, Lido DAO was looking to secure two years of runway for the team in stablecoins to prepare for a prolonged bear market by selling 20 million LDO tokens, with 10 million being sold outright to Dragonfly.
According to a recent provisional budget, Lido has one of the larger teams in DeFi, with roughly 83 full-time contributors racking up a burn rate of nearly $29 million a year. Currently, Lido DAO holds the vast majority of its $285 million treasury in volatile assets ($247 million in LDO and $30 million in ETH). Many community members have voiced concern over what could happen to the organization if LDO and/or ETH drop precipitously in price.
With that in mind, selling tokens to Dragonfly to pay for operations is still in play despite the original vote being vetoed, as a new governance forum proposal appears to already be in the works, which would see Dragonfly paying a higher price per token. Additionally, it seems that a token lockup for Dragonfly is being considered after the lack of such a mechanism led to community members, including DegenSpartan and Adam Cochran, voicing their opinion that Dragonfly’s LDO tokens should be locked up and then vested over a one or two-year period.
Recommended Reads
- Galois Capital on BTC vs. ETH
- Variant Fund’s Alana Levin on token frameworks
- Mario Gabriele on Helium
On The Pod…
Two crypto law experts, Wassielawyer and Adam Levitin, analyze the bankruptcies of 3AC, Celsius, and Voyager. Show highlights:
- the difference between Voyager and Celsius “custody” and “earn” deposits
- why Celsius commingling customer custody and earn deposits could make it harder for creditors to get their money back
- what similarities and differences the Voyager and Celsius bankruptcies have
- how Chapter 11 bankruptcy works
- why Wassie and Adam believe Celsius might have engaged in shady business practices, whereas they believe Voyager was just an irresponsible lender
- what the latest is on the 3AC bankruptcy and the location of Kyle Davies and Zhu Su
- what Celsius and Voyager can clawback from 3AC
- how Alameda fits into the Voyager bankruptcy case
- whether creditors will receive funds back in crypto or dollars
- the three types of ways creditors can “claw back” funds in a bankruptcy case
- why Wassielawyer and Adam believe Celsius’ Chapter 11 plan to restructure around mining is so weird
- whether the founders from 3AC, Celsius, or Voyager will see jail time
Book Update
My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, is now available!
You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians
