Happy New Year!
As we enter 2022, here's a quick refresher on how last year closed out.
Top of mind at Shipyard
Several weeks ago we published an op-ed on The Defiant pointing out that unincorporated DAOs expose their members to significant personal liability. At the time, we predicted the first member-to-member DAO lawsuit would highlight this issue in 2022, and it looks like this may be happening sooner than we thought. The SushiSwap drama burst out into the open the same day our op-ed was published and we wouldn’t be surprised if a lawsuit resulted next year.
On December 22, members of Index Protocol announced a class action against Andean Medjedovic, who refused to return $16M from his exploit citing “code is law.” (court filings here). Bloomberg’s Matt Levine is fond of pointing out that “Everything Everywhere Is Securities Fraud,” and that almost any scandal at a US public company will lead to a securities-fraud lawsuit. For better or for worse, litigation is on the horizon for DAOs and members would be wise to demand incorporation to limit their personal liability.
Shipyard insights
The Defiant recently published an op-ed by Mark Lurie that lays out The Case for Why DAOs Should Register as Legal Entities.
Curious to know The Real Reason Why El Salvador Adopted Bitcoin? Mark Lurie shares his thoughts on El Salvador’s bid for geopolitical self-sovereignty with CryptoSlate.
The latest episode of Shipyard’s “WTF Crypto?”podcast is out! This fourth installment discusses bad actors in crypto — what it takes to be a good actor in the crypto space, and the surprising ways honest market participants can end up harming the crypto ecosystems they support. Tune in today!
DEX headlines that caught our attention
- The 1inch Network recently closed a $175m series B funding round with ~50 institutional investors, led by Amber Group.
- Balancer v2 now allows users to create their own custom weighted Pools in four easy steps.
- Kyber Network's DMM relaunches as KyberSwap, with several new features.
- Hashflow Network recently launched Public Pools, with a group of select LPs to contribute liquidity.
- Balancer launches 'Boosted Pools' on Aave in a bid to improve DeFi yields.
- The 1inch Network released v2 of the 1inch Limit Order Protocol, which introduces Gasless limit orders for ETH and other improvements.
- Uniswap recently rolled out v2 of its Auto Router, along with several other features to improve swap pricing and optimize gas cost.
- Uniswap v3 recently deployed on Polygon’s cost-effective L2 network.
What we're reading
Within DeFi, decentralization is not a guarantee, as SushiSwap’s recent flurry of corporate infighting illustrates. The project’s CTO recently stepped down in the face of growing concerns about SushiSwap’s transparency and funding accountability. The project has taken a reputational hit from all the mudslinging, and its ultimate resolution (or lack thereof) will likely have wide-ranging implications for other DAOs. In a bid to help the project course correct, Shipyard Software recently proposed a third-party audit of SushiSwap in order to re-establish the project’s credibility.
While trying to apply traditional valuation metrics to crypto protocols is difficult given how new the industry is, this Messari report attempts to value Curve Finance using a discounted cash flow model (DCF) and comparable analysis with Uniswap, Sushiswap, and Balancer.
Clipper updates
Clipper’s first community adventure, The Search for Polygon Isles, was a great success! The experience was a cross between a digital scavenger hunt and a turn-based game, and the DeFi pirates who reached the end were whitelisted for Clipper’s Polygon CLP. Full rundown here.
Over 1,300 unique addresses deposited liquidity during Clipper’s Polygon Community Liquidity Program, providing a total of $680,000 in total staked assets. You can find the whole Polygon CLP recap here.
In the coming weeks, Shipyard Software will also be replacing Clipper’s current Ethereum mainnet architecture with a new RFQ (request for quote) architecture. This new architecture will be more gas efficient and allow users of Clipper DEX to pay even lower overall prices for their trades. More details to come soon!
Enjoy your DeFi journey,
The Shipyard Team
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