Weekly newsletter of DAO highlights | Issue #33

From security breaches to DAO regulations, we’ve compiled some of the most relevant DAO and DeFi stories from the past week.

DAO Stats

Despite the downturn in the general cryptocurrency market, new entrants have continued to join the DAO train. Data on the Web3 analytics platform, DeepDAO, shows that over 1,000 new decentralization organizations entered the space between July 24 and July 31. This brings the total number of DAOs listed on DeepDAO to 21,362.

Surprisingly, this increase in the aggregated number of DAOs failed to record a positive impact on the USD value of the assets held in DAO treasuries. As of July 31, the total assets under management (AUM) in DAO treasuries stood at $22.8 billion. Comparatively, this figure rose to $23.6 billion last week. Meanwhile, Arbitrum, BitDAO, and Optimism Collective remain the three largest decentralized organizations by treasury size.

Major DAO Highlights

DAO Regulation in Israel: Government Seeks Public Input

The Israeli government has set up a team to explore the regulation of DAOs. The team, led by the Chief Economist at the Ministry of Finance and the Head of the Corporations and Capital Market Cluster at the Ministry of Justice, will examine the uses and types of activities carried out by DAOs, as well as the use of crypto tokens within DAOs and the associated risks.

The government will also solicit public feedback on DAO regulations, with consultation running until September.

Gitcoin community elects new leaders to help shape the future of the DAO

Last Tuesday, Gitcoin DAO elected 8 members to its Steward Council. The 8 officials were chosen from a pool of 13 contestants, and will have a term of ~180 days. The new Steward Council is made up of JR-OKX, Ccerve1, Vikram, Deana, Essemharris, TheCollinsFamily, Vinayvasanji, and Jelena647.

The newly elected Steward Council will be responsible for coordinating the Gitcoin DAO's operations, managing budgets, and helping to set strategy.

Sushi DAO strengthens legal team with Gresham International partnership

Coming on the heels of an alleged subpoena from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Sushi DAO has endorsed Gresham International as its new legal partner. The leading international law firm will be tasked with developing a custom international model with inbuilt protections for members and operations, drafting new user terms, as well as creating strategies and firewalls to protect DAO members.

DeFi News

$225 Million Raised in Crypto for Ukraine, but Donations Dwindle

In a rather interesting proof of concept for decentralization and the use of cryptocurrencies, a new report by blockchain intelligence firm Crystal Blockchain suggests that Ukraine has received $225 million worth of donations in cryptocurrencies since the beginning of Russia’s invasion last year.

The majority of these donations came in the first few weeks of the war when the Ukrainian government and NGOs set up crypto wallets to accept donations. However, the pace of donations has slowed in recent months. Crystal Blockchain reports that less than $10 million in crypto donations were received in June 2023, down from a peak of nearly $100 million in March 2022.

Crypto Thieves Strike Again: $24 Million Stolen from Curve Pools

On July 30, 2023, several decentralized finance (DeFi) projects were hit by a series of exploits that resulted in the theft of over $24 million worth of cryptocurrency. The attacks targeted liquidity pools on Curve, an automated market maker (AMM) platform.

The exploits were made possible by a vulnerability in the way that Curve pools calculate fees. The vulnerability allowed attackers to withdraw more funds from the pools than they were entitled to. The affected projects included JPEG'd, Alchemix, and Metronome DAO. JPEG'd was the hardest hit, losing over $11 million worth of cryptocurrency. Alchemix and Metronome DAO lost $13.6 million and $1.6 million, respectively.

Curve has since patched the vulnerability and reimbursed the affected users. However, the attacks have highlighted the security risks associated with DeFi protocols.

Zuckerberg doubles down on metaverse despite $3.7 billion loss

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reiterated his commitment to the metaverse despite the company's recent financial losses. In the second quarter of 2023, Meta's metaverse investments resulted in a $3.7 billion loss. However, Zuckerberg remains hopeful that the metaverse will be a major driver of growth for Meta Platforms in the future.

DAO Governance Updates

Completed

• SuperRare DAO has passed a proposal to allocate around 60.60 million RARE tokens to fund network participation incentive programs that will reward active users of SuperRare.
• Decentraland Games has agreed to strategically sell some of the Decentraland LAND held in its DAO treasury. The sale will be conducted over a period of time to “avoid flooding the market or negatively affecting the land market value.”
• Balancer DAO has approved BIP-368, a proposal to allocate 100K USDC from its treasury towards 12 weeks of incentives for the protocol's launch on Avalanche.
• Aave DAO has adjusted its veBAL voting weight ahead of its upcoming GHO liquidity pools. Notably, 40% will go to the GHO/bb-a-USD V3 pool, another 40% to the GHO/LUSD pool, and the remaining 20% to the wstETH/GHO pool.

Active Voting Rounds

• Aave DAO has begun voting on terminating its relationship with Llama on the grounds that Llama's performance had fallen short of expectations. The DAO is also voting on a proposal outlining the third part of the offboarding plan for BUSD on the Aave V2 Ethereum market.
• The Sushi community is hoping to ink a strategic partnership with DWF Labs, a move that is expected to “enhance liquidity and trading volumes on SushiV3 and improve the liquidity of the SUSHI token on major exchanges.” Voting on the proposal will end on August 1.
• One of the largest DAOs by treasury size, BitDAO, is currently voting on a proposal seeking to create a specialized sub-governance body primarily responsible for assessing and making decisions on the allocation of Mantle Treasury assets.