Uniswap reveals assets ahead of fee mechanism vote

May 26, 2024 Coin Telegraph

Sell or stake: Ethereum staking giant Lido mulls choices for its $30M ETH

February 15, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Sell or stake: Ethereum staking giant Lido mulls choices for its M ETH

While LidoDAO’s current inflows of about 1000 stETH are sufficient to cover operating costs for the time being, it’s worried that may not last.

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) behind Lido — the largest Ethereum staking pool — is deliberating whether it should sell or stake the $30 million in Ether (ETH) from its treasury.

A proposal was submitted on Feb. 14 by the DAO’s financial unit, Steakhouse Financial that considers four choices, one of which contemplates staking part or all of its ETH on Lido in the form of Lido Staked ETH (stETH).

Another would see LidoDAO selling a part or all of its 20,304 ETH for a stablecoin, with the purpose being to extend the DAO’s runway.

*The four proposals (pictured) submitted by Steakhouse Financial to the LidoDAO asking how it should manage its treasury. Source: Lido*

The proposal comes as ETH staking withdrawals will soon be enabled through Ethereum’s Shanghai and Capella upgrades expected to take place sometime in earl 2023 according to the Ethereum Foundation.

While converting the ETH to Staked ETH may lead to more protocol rewards, the DAO is wary that too much staking may risk it not having enough Ether on hand “in case of need.”

*Assets currently held in LidoDAO’s treasury. ETH currently accounts for about 9% of the DAO’s over $350 million treasury holdings. Source:* *Lido.*

Regarding operating expenses, Steakhouse Financial suggested it may be necessary to swap Ether for a stablecoin in order to “preemptively secure additional runway.”

Steakhouse Financial noted that with LidoDAO’s current inflows at about 1000 stETH per month, the DAO is making approximately $1.3 million to 1.5 million per month with the price of ETH hovering between $1,100 and 1,700 over the past few months.

*The monthly inflow of stETH on Lido has steadily increased since January 2021. Source:* *Dune Analytics.*

Steakhouse Financial said those figures alone should be “sufficient to cover monthly operating expenses.”

However, they’re still deliberating whether it is worth converting excess stETH into a stablecoin to better prepare for any change in market conditions that may lead to increased operating expenses.

A business development representative from LidoDAO noted that they’re not particularly thrilled with the current state of the stablecoin market:

“Considering all the FUD and rumors, both DAI due to USDC collateral and USDC itself pose potential risk if they become frozen. That being said I have issues with the liquidity of LUSD and USDT has yet its own issues.”

It appears as though most LidoDAO members are in favor of partially selling and staking a portion of the 20,304 ETH locked in its Aragon smart contract.

The proposals come as the total value locked (TVL) of stETH fell 6.66% between Feb. 6-13.

Lido Analytics: Feb 06 - 13, 2023

TLDR:
- Lido TVL is down -6.66%, following a -7.22% fall in the price of ETH.
- Lido led in new stake on Ethereum, with a 27% share in weekly deposits.
- New @AaveAave V3 wstETH: 34,726 (+34.87%).
- Lido on Polygon reaches 2% market share. pic.twitter.com/iWA9YccM6e
— Lido (@LidoFinance) February 13, 2023

The TVL of Lido is currently $8.13 billion, according to the on-chain metrics platform DeFiLlama.

MakerDAO to dissolve Foundation and become truly decentralized again

July 21, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

MakerDAO plans to complete its roadmap to decentralized governance with the dissolution of its foundation in the coming months.

Pioneering decentralized finance protocol, MakerDAO, has announced its foundation will formally dissolve in the coming months, marking one of the final milestones in the protocol’s roadmap to decentralized governance.

A July 20 blog post describes Maker’s decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, as now being “fully self-sufficient” — with its globally distributed community “now responsible for every aspect of the Maker protocol.”

“Complete decentralization of Maker means that future development and operation of the Protocol and the DAO will be determined by thousands or perhaps millions of engaged, enthusiastic community members, all determined to extend the benefits of digital currency to people across the globe.”

The post’s author, Maker Foundation CEO, Rune Christensen recounts highlights from the project’s six-year journey, with Christensen having first revealed his plans in a Reddit post detailing his vision for an Ethereum-back stable token dubbed “eDollar” during March 2015.

The Maker Foundation was created as a non-profit tasked with overseeing the project's development and funding in September 2018, reportedly at the behest of its early investors. While Christensen created the Foundation with the intention of dissolving it within two to three years, the move catalyzed internal tensions between supporters of the Foundation and those who saw the legal entity as at odds with crypto’s fundamentally anarchic ethos.

He describes Maker as having “come a long way in a relatively short period,” transitioning from a pioneering fledgling DAO, into a Foundation, and back to a DAO again.

“While the Foundation played a specific and important role in the further development of the Maker Protocol and the growth of a global team, it was designed to exist only temporarily,” emphasized Christensen.

In May 2017, more than two years after Christensen revealed Maker on Reddit, the protocol conducted a limited release of ProtoSai — the precursor to Maker’s first stablecoin, SAI, or Single-Collateral Dai.

SAI would enjoy a wholesale release in December of 2017 and circulate for nearly two years, with Maker introducing Multi-Collateral Dai (DAI) during November of 2019 — allowing DAI to be minted against a variety of digital assets approved by Maker governance.

While Maker would emerge as a pioneering DeFi protocol perched at the top of the sector’s rankings by total value locked, 2020 was not all smooth sailing for Maker, with users launching a class-action lawsuit against the foundation in the aftermath of “Black Thursday” in March. The incident saw Maker lose roughly $6.64 million DAI to cascading liquidations after the price of Ether crashed 50% over roughly 24 hours.

March 2020 would also see the Maker Foundation transfer the MKR token contract to community governance, marking the beginnings of the project’s journey to reinstating decentralizing governance — with Christensen characterizing the foundation as “completely pointless.”

The protocol would also add support for Circle’s centralized stablecoin USDC that month, inflaming controversy regarding Maker’s support for centralized crypto assets as collateral for its purported decentralized stable token.

In March of this year, “Core Units” were established to coordinate management across the protocol’s various teams and activities. The foundation would also return development funds of 84,000 MKR to the Maker DAO in May, worth nearly $500 million at the time.

According to DeFi Llama, MakerDAO is currently the sixth-ranked decentralized finance protocol with a total value locked of $5.62 billion.

decentralized governance