How Compound got back $25m after a governance attack
A version of this article appeared in our The Decentralised newsletter on July 30. Sign up here.
GM, Tim here.
Here’s what caught my DeFi-eye recently:
- Compound DAO reaches a truce with its attacker.
- Cardano initiates its Chang hard fork.
- MakerDAO’s rebrand is just weeks away.
Compound resolves attack
Compound DAO has reached a truce with the group of buccaneering DeFi players who took control of $25 million worth of COMP tokens on Sunday.
The group, called the Goldenboys, used a DAO vote to award themselves 499,000 COMP tokens from the Compound DAO’s treasury.
After a tense 48 hours, pseudonymous Goldenboys member Humpy returned the tokens.
In return, Compound Protocol Head of Growth Bryan Colligan proposed the protocol start sharing fees with COMP token holders.
He detailed the plan in a post on the Compound governance forum.
The future looks bright for Compound.
— bryancolligan (@bryancolligan) July 29, 2024
Staking Compound is the #1 priority for the compound growth program going forward. https://t.co/ewM6zPiMvj
“I fully approve this message,” Humpy said in response.
Compound is run via a DAO, or decentralised autonomous organisation.
This means holders of the protocol’s COMP token govern the protocol by voting on proposed changes, as well as uses for the DAO’s $96 million treasury.
Many feared that had Compound not reached a deal with the Goldenboys, the group could use their governance power to push through changes that benefitted them at the expense of everyone else.
Compound holds $2.3 billion worth of user deposits.
It’s not the first time Humpy has ruffled feathers in DAO governance.
People should read on Humpy not his first rodeo been there since 2020
— 0xMaki.lens 마키🦇🔊 (@0xMaki) July 28, 2024
Next you learn about his memecoin
9figs whale spicying up governance and pushing boundaries love to see it
Not an attack in my book pure governance at playshttps://t.co/cwZYPPBpYo pic.twitter.com/HT4sh3ljaq
In 2022, Humpy agreed to a so-called peace treaty with decentralised exchange Balancer after attempting to gain control of the protocol.
Cardano’s big upgrade
Cardano’s Chang hard fork has finally begun.
Stake pool operators on the network are upgrading their nodes to new software. The hard fork will happen once at least 70% of all operators have upgraded.
At that point, Cardano will enter its so-called Voltaire era.
Voltaire will pass some control of the Cardano blockchain to its community.
ADA token holders will receive governance rights and be able to propose and vote on changes to the blockchain.
Cardano’s development since its 2017 inception has been under the purview of the Cardano Foundation, EMURGO, and Input Output Global.
EMURGO is Cardano’s official commercial arm and Input Output Global is Hoskinson’s blockchain development company.
So far, 38% of all operators are running the new software, per data from Cardano staking dashboard PoolTool.
MakerDAO’s ‘Endgame’ is close
Maker co-founder Rune Christensen’s ambitious and controversial Endgame plan is just weeks away from its multi-step rollout.
First proposed in 2022, Endgame will feature a total rebrand, new tokens, new ways to earn yield, so-called subDAOs and artificial intelligence.
It’s all designed to help take Maker and its stablecoin mainstream.
Christensen said the goal is to raise the DAI supply to “100 billion and beyond” — just shy of leading stablecoin Tether’s $114 billion.
Investors appear to like the plan.
The MakerDAO governance token, MKR, has outperformed this year, rising more than 60%, while the value of the entire crypto ecosystem is up 34%.
Maker is a suite of protocols centred around the DAI stablecoin.
Users can deposit volatile crypto assets like Ethereum into Maker and receive DAI in return.
Maker’s Spark protocol offers users 7% annually on DAI deposits.
Data of the week
Coinbase protocol specialist Viktor Bunin crunches the numbers for trading on Ethereum vs Solana.
He found that trading on Solana is more capital efficient, facilitating more trading volume per dollar locked in decentralised exchanges than on Ethereum.
But there’s a caveat: A lot of Solana trading volume involves scam tokens.
I took a light look at some of the top trading pairs across Uniswap on Ethereum + Base and Raydium on Solana. TLDR:
— Viktor Bunin 🛡️ (@ViktorBunin) July 25, 2024
1. Solana sees more volume per dollar of TVL, with a large gap to Ethereum, but a small gap to Base.
2. A monstrous amount of volume on Raydium is scams pic.twitter.com/fzCPrMtbgV
This week in DeFi governance
VOTE: Stargate will add Sei Network to its crypto bridge
PROPOSAL: Jupiter aggregator to vote on a 30% JUP token supply reduction
VOTE: CoW DAO to extend revenue model testing period
Post of the week
Crypto Twitter reminds us that with a culture of anonymity, you can never really be sure who you’re speaking to.
39 year olds calling 14 year olds “Ser” on crypto twitter pic.twitter.com/XqIiK4LDPY
— JDizzah (@JDizzah) July 24, 2024
What we’re watching
🔓 Weekly Cliff Unlocks : 29-4 August 24 🔓
— Token Unlocks (@Token_Unlocks) July 26, 2024
🔥 $ 347.28m 🔥
🌟 Unlock Highlights 🌟$W (33.33%) - $171.72m$OP (2.79%) - $54.53m$SUI (2.56%) - $48.98m$ZETA (18.92%) - $33.69m$GAL (3.52%) - 14.81m$DYDX (3.65%) - $10.58m$ENA (0.87%) - $6.58m
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( % of cir. supply) pic.twitter.com/IZe9lOUYaN
Crypto bridge Wormhole will distribute over $170 million worth of its W token on August 3.
That’s equivalent to 33% of the circulating supply.
Got a tip about DeFi? Reach out at [email protected].
