Solana wind down ‘deemed a necessity’ after low fees, says Lido Finance

October 17, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Unsustainable financials and low fees generated by Lido on Solana were two of the main reasons for the sunsetting.

Decentralized liquid staking protocol Lido Finance has announced a decision to cease operations on the Solana blockchain following a community vote in Lido’s decentralized autonomous organization.

The proposal to sunset Lido on Solana was first put forward by Lido’s peer-to-peer team on Sept. 5, citing unsustainable financials and low fees generated by Lido on Solana. Voting commenced on Sept. 29 and finished a week later on Oct. 6.

“After extensive DAO forum discussion followed by community vote, the sunsetting of the Lido on Solana protocol was approved by Lido token holders and the process will begin shortly,” Lido explained in an Oct. 16 post.

Lido will not be accepting staking requests as of Oct. 16. Voluntary node operator off-boarding will begin on Nov. 17 and Lido users will need to unstake on Solana’s frontend by Feb. 4.

“After this date, unstaking will need to be done using the CLI,” Lido added.

After extensive DAO discussion followed by community vote, the sunsetting of Lido on Solana was approved by LDO holders and will begin shortly.

More information here: https://t.co/MyImL1qpap
— Lido (@LidoFinance) October 16, 2023

The earlier proposal saw Lido seeking $20,000 per month from Lido DAO to support technical maintenance efforts involved with sunsetting operations on Solana over the next five months.

*Lido’s statement on terminating services on Solana. Source: Lido.fi*

Lido’s P2P team has been working on the Lido on Solana project since acquiring it in March 2022 from Chorus One.

Since the takeover, the P2P team has invested about $700,000 into Lido on Solana and made $220,000 in revenue, resulting in a net loss of $484,000, according to the mediakov, the author of the proposal.

The alternative in the Sept. 5 proposal was to provide more funding to Solana from Lido DAO — however 65 million (92.7%) of the 70.1 million LDO tokens (voted by token holders) were in favor of sunsetting operations on Solana instead, according to open-source voting platform Snapshot.

Lido explained the decision was a difficult but necessary one to make:

“Whilst this decision was difficult in the face of numerous strong relationships across the Solana ecosystem, it was deemed a necessity for the continued success of the broader Lido protocol ecosystem.”

Lido confirmed that staked-Solana (stSOL) token holders will continue to receive network rewards throughout the sunsetting process.

Lido’s staking services are now only supported on Ethereum and Polygon, where $14 billion and $80 million are staked, respectively, according to Lido’s website.

Lido launched on Solana on Sept. 8, 2021, when SOL was priced at $189 — an 87% fall from its current price of $24, according to CoinGecko.

Despite the news, SOL is up 8.6% over the last 24 hours.

SOL’s price movements over the last seven days. Source: CoinGecko

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BarnBridge DAO calls halt to ‘all work’ on DeFi protocol amid SEC probe

July 7, 2023 Coin Telegraph

BarnBridge

Some DAO members joked about the situation while others believed there may be an ulterior motive at play.

BarnBridge DAO members have been told to pause “all work” related to the project after a reported probe by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In a July 6 post to the platform’s Discord channel, Douglas Park, a lawyer for the decentralized autonomous organization revealed the news to members.

“I am letting you know that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating BarnBridge DAO and individuals associated with the DAO,” Park said.

pic.twitter.com/ChsjBuGEzM
— BarnBridge (@Barn_Bridge) July 7, 2023

In order to “reduce potential further legal liability,” Park suggested “all work” on BarnBridge-related products should stop — including the closure of liquidity pools — and that individuals should not receive compensation for work flowing from the investment efforts of the DAO.

Co-founder Tyler Ward, presumably dubbed “Lord Tyler” on Discord, confirmed Park’s message was true on BarnBridge’s Discord shortly after.

Park and Ward didn’t explain why the SEC launched a probe into BarnBridge DAO. Park however explained that because the investigation is “ongoing” and “non-public,” only limited information can be shared.

Between June 30 and July 3, 100% of BarnBridge (BOND) token holders — voted on a proposal to retain the law firm Park & Dibadj LLP — of which Park is the managing partner — as legal counsel for the DAO “for various legal work.”

213,000 votes were cast and 201,000, or 94.3%, of them came from the wallet “barnbridge.eth.”

*100% of the 213,000 BOND tokens were placed in favor of the proposal. Source: Snapshot*

The timing and subject of the proposal may suggest the SEC launched an investigation into BarnBridge DAO before June 30.

Some DAO members have raised suspicions over the announcement, however.

One member of the Discord asked for supporting evidence of the SEC’s investigation and implied BarnBridge’s founders may be using it as an excuse to facilitate an “exit strategy” to potentially defraud investors.

Ward refuted the claim stating it would be the “worst thought-out rug attempt in history.”

Other members took the news more lightheartedly with one saying it’s “time to move to Europe” — suggesting DAO members could hide from the SEC.

Another jokingly stated that anyone who interacted with BarnBridge would be “shot” by SEC chair Gary Gensler “on live TV” — alluding to his tough stance on crypto.

*Mixed reactions were recieved from BarnBridge DAO members on Discord. Source: Discord*

BarnBridge is a cross-platform risk management DeFi protocol that attempts to tackle inflation risk and interest rate volatility.

Since the news emerged, the price of its native token BOND has fallen 1.9% to $3.12, according to CoinGecko. The token is down 98.3% since its all-time high price of $185.7 on Oct. 27, 2020, and currently has a market cap of $29 million.

Early last month, the SEC filed lawsuits against two of the industry’s largest exchanges Binance and Coinbase, alleging they offered unregistered securities.

The reported investigation into BarnBridge, a small to mid-sized DAO, could suggest the securities regulator isn’t just looking to target the crypto space's largest organizations.

Cointelegraph contacted the SEC for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

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Anchorage Digital opens up DeFi voting for custody clients

May 17, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Anchorage Digital Bank

Anchorage joins AAVE, Lido and BitDAO in adopting the off-chain voting platform Snapshot.

Institutional clients of crypto custody firm Anchorage Digital can now voice their concerns on proposals for tokens they hold without paying hefty gas fees.

According to a May 16 statement, Anchorage will integrate off-chain, gasless multi-governance client Snapshot to allow its “token-holding community users” to vote on governance proposals with their tokens, without incurring any gas fees.

Anchorage Digital is pleased to announce that clients can now participate in Snapshot voting using their Anchorage Digital address. Our WalletConnect integration enables:

+ Voting from within qualified custody with no movement of funds
+ Secure off-chain governance for… pic.twitter.com/VYZ5pIwyl1
— Anchorage Digital (@Anchorage) May 16, 2023

It said all voting will take place within Anchorage’s custody with no movement of funds.

Snapshot is used by decentralizeprotocols like AAVE (AAVE), Lido (LDO), and BitDAO. It records the voting off-chain — meaning transactions are not publicly recorded on the blockchain.

The advantage of this approach is “convenience,” according to Anchorage:

“The tradeoff for such convenience comes in the form of on-chain guarantees; Snapshot voting is free because votes are counted off-chain and thus do not require gas payments. The responsibility to enforce the decision is typically entrusted to a multisig that the protocol team operates.”

Anchorage said it currently supports “over 60 ERC-20 tokens,” with plans to enable support for all applicable future ERC-20 tokens.

It was announced in October 2022 that Anchorage had extended its operations to Asia with five new institutional partners including Bitkub, DreamTrade and FBG Capital. It stated Asia’s consumers “have adopted crypto with enthusiasm.”

Snapshot has recently been employed to collect votes from AAVE and LDO token holders regarding each of the protocol’s latest upgrade or governance proposals.

[Aave Snapshot] [ARFC] Aave V2 Interest Rate Curve Changes (2023-04-21) https://t.co/MQwcd5NVBt @indexcoop @SnapshotLabs pic.twitter.com/GrS1OkkHNs
— mel. (@emjicy) May 2, 2023

The voting system also proved beneficial for AAVE users who mistakenly sent their tokens to the wrong address.

In July 2022, LidoDAO, the governance body that controls Lido Finance, a liquid staking solution for proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, conducted a Snapshot vote on sending 1% of LDO’s token supply to DragonFly Capital for $14.5 million which was rejected by token holders.

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Scam alert: MetaMask warns users of deceptive March 31 airdrop rumors

March 29, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Blur

MetaMask posted a warning on its Twitter after coming across rumors of an upcoming MetaMask snapshot or airdrop on social media.

Web3 wallet provider MetaMask has warned its users of “false rumors” of a purported MetaMask airdrop, which appears to have been making the rounds on social media.

According to a March 28 tweet from MetaMask, there have "quite a few rumors going around" of a MetaMask snapshot or airdrop on March 31.

There are quite a few false rumors going around about a MetaMask snapshot/airdrop/etc. on March 31.

These rumors are not only false, but they are dangerous. They create opportunities for scammers and phishers.

Please be on the lookout for fake sites in the coming days
— MetaMask (@MetaMask) March 28, 2023

“These rumors are not only false, but they are dangerous. They create opportunities for scammers and phishers,” warned MetaMask.

Cointelegraph has identified a number of Twitter accounts purporting to be related to MetaMask or a MetaMask token airdrop.

*A Twitter account claiming to be owned by MetaMask which links to a phishing website*

In its Twitter post, MetaMask has denied the rumors of an upcoming airdrop and has urged users to stay vigilant for fake sites in the coming days.

*Screenshot from a phishing website claiming to be MetaMask*

The recent rumors may be linked to a “fireside chat” session with ConsenSys CEO and Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin at ETHDenver 2023 on March 14, who reiterated his firm is “actively working to decentralize” MetaMask. He later reportedly confirmed that they were intending to launch a token.

Lubin also first hinted at a MetaMask token in a Nov. 8 Tweet from 2021, saying “Wen $MASK? Stay tuned.”

Andrew, ConsenSys has thousands of tokens on our balance sheet. ConsenSys is vigorously controlled by its employees, which includes me. And we are driving towards decentralization of several of our projects. Wen $MASK? Stay tuned. Wen objective journalism, ser?
— Joseph Lubin (@ethereumJoseph) November 8, 2021

While MetaMask has debunked an imminent airdrop, many of the replies from the community suggest they are still hopeful that an airdrop may still occur, but just at a later date.

Cointelegraph has contacted MetaMask’s parent company ConsenSys for clarification about whether there were plans for a future airdrop but was yet to hear back at the time of publication.

Activity on MetaMask nearly tripled on the back of the rumors, with data from DappRadar showing that the number of transactions on March 27 reached 21,460 from a baseline of approximately 8,000.

*MetaMask activity from Feb. 27 to March 28. Source: DappRadar.*

MetaMask saw a similar flurry of activity due to rumors of an airdrop back in November 2021, following recent airdrops from both the Ethereum Name Service and Lubin’s mention of a token.

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