Weekly newsletter of DAO highlights | Issue #34

Catch up on the latest happenings within DAO communities and the most relevant news from the DeFi space.

DAO Stats

The DAO sector has continued to enjoy significant growth despite the ongoing crypto winter in the wider cryptocurrency market. This is evident in the total number of decentralized autonomous organizations. Over the past week, the aggregated number of DAOs listed on the Web3 analytics platform, DeepDAO, grew from 21,362 to over 24,000.

However, like the previous week, the uptick in the number of DAOs has failed to register any increase in the assets held in DAO treasuries. Between July 31 and August 7, the USD value of the total assets under management (AUM) in DAO treasuries fell by $143 million, bringing it to $22.7 billion.

Meanwhile, Optimism Collective has overtaken Arbitrum as the largest DAO by treasury size. The Web3 collective has approximately $4.2 billion worth of assets in its purse, with approximately 100% of the assets being held in its native OP tokens.

Major DAO Highlights

Arbitrum DAO Mulls over Delegate Incentive Program

A proposal to introduce an incentive system for delegates is currently being discussed in Arbitrum DAO. Citing the challenge of a lack of participation of community members in governance, the proposal suggests providing delegates with constant, attractive, and predictable rewards. Notably, there is a high discrepancy between Snapshot and Tally voters.

Curve DAO Cuts Off Rewards for Hacked Pools

The Curve emergency DAO has terminated rewards for pools that were affected by a recent hack. The hack, which occurred on July 30, 2023, resulted in the theft of millions in stablecoins.

The DAO voted to terminate rewards for the affected pools in order to protect users from further losses. The rewards were terminated for the alETH, msETH, and pETH pools. The DAO also voted to increase the security of the protocol by implementing a number of new measures. These measures include increasing the gas price for transactions in the pools, adding new security checks to the pools, and increasing the number of validators for the pools.

DeFi News

Curve Recovers $53 Million in Hacked Funds, CRV Price Soars

Following a security breach at the tail end of July, Curve Finance has managed to recover about 73% of the funds stolen during the hack. As previously reported, the incident affected projects JPEG'd, Alchemix, and Metronome DAO. However, all $22 million in ether (ETH) and ether derivatives stolen from Alchemix lending protocol had been returned, a trading bot returned 90% of the ether stolen from JPEG’d, and Ethical hacker “c0ffeebabe.eth” returned over $6 million from Metronome.

SEC Gives Coinbase an Ultimatum: Stop Trading Cryptos or Face Legal Action

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reportedly told Coinbase to stop trading all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin or face legal action. According to the company's chief executive Brian Armstrong, the SEC told Coinbase that it needed to register with the agency as a securities exchange in order to continue trading cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin. Coinbase has refused to register with the SEC, arguing that cryptocurrencies are not securities and therefore do not need to be regulated by the agency.

NFTs in Trouble: July's Sales Volume Plunges to Two-Year Low

The NFT market had a terrible month in July, according to a new report from DappRadar. Trading volume fell 49% from June to July, and the number of sales dropped 23%. This is the biggest monthly drop in trading volume since January 2022.

The decline in the NFT market is likely due to a number of factors, including the ongoing crypto bear market and the collapse of the Terra ecosystem. However, some analysts believe that the NFT market is simply correcting after a period of unsustainable growth.

Crypto Winter Chills Hedge Funds: Almost 100 Have Closed

The crypto winter has had a chilling effect on the hedge fund industry, with almost 100 funds closing their doors this year.

A report from Bloomberg News found that 97 crypto hedge funds have shut down in 2023, with the vast majority of closures occurring in the past six months. The report also found that the total assets under management (AUM) of crypto hedge funds have fallen from $37 billion at the start of the year to $20 billion today.

The decline in the crypto market has been a major factor in the closure of these funds. The price of Bitcoin has fallen by more than 70% since its all-time high in November 2021, and many crypto hedge funds have been unable to withstand the losses.

DAO Governance Updates

Completed

• ApeCoin DAO has voted to give away free ApeCoin NFT Shields to the first 150,000 APE holders and all BAYC, MAYC, CryptoPunks, Meebits, BAKC, and Otherside owners.
• 1inch DAO will be rolling out some amendments to its Recognized Delegate program. Notably, the framework of the program will be modified into a three-tiered system which will incentivize new delegates with lower voting weight to be recognized and earn their way to becoming a Tier 3 Recognized Delegate.
• Moving forward, Decentraland DAO will introduce the Community Building category to the DAO grants program. The new category will recognize and support individuals or groups who actively contribute to the growth, development, and engagement of the Decentraland community.
• SushiSwap DAO has ratified a proposal seeking to ink a partnership deal with DWF Labs. The collaboration is expected to “enhance liquidity and trading volumes on SushiV3 and improve the liquidity of the SUSHI token on major exchanges.”

Active Voting Rounds

• Illuvium DAO is looking to institute a peer and self-evaluation mechanism to bolster transparency and accountability among council members. If approved IIP-35 will introduce peer and self-evaluation for council members.
• Rocket Pool DAO may soon remove the retrospective award cap and introduce a new monthly process for its award cycle. Voting on the proposal will end on August 18.