Rise of the Blockchain of the $APE

A blockchain community has voted to take more than $100 million worth of tokens in a controversial governance vote.  

The community of Juno Network, a Cosmos-based network that lets different smart contracts interact with one another, will revoke millions of $JUNO from a wallet which “gamed” a stakedrop. 

As its name implies, a stakedrop involves staking assets in exchange for an airdrop of another asset. In this case, the Juno Network offered an opportunity to stake Cosmos ($ATOM.X) in exchange for $JUNO.X tokens. The network imposed a max reward for the stakedrop at 50,000 $JUNO.X per wallet.

However, the keyword there is per wallet. A well-seasoned investor took advantage of that distinction – they staked $ATOM.X across two dozen wallets to “game” the stakedrop. By doing so, they ended up with over 3.1 million $JUNO.X in the distribution. As of today, that represented a nine-figure reward – and over 7% of the circulating supply of the token. 

So this enterprising, and fairly kniving, investor managed (maybe unknowingly) to turn about $1.3 million worth of $ATOM.X into a nine-figure payday by exploiting the very nature of the stakedrop.

Alas, the community didn’t see it as “enterprising” or “smart” at all – they saw it as a risk. By owning 7% of $JUNO.X, the unknown investor would be in a position to control Juno governance – they could affect meaningful changes in the blockchain system’s, influence policies, and potentially even destroy the price or liquidity of the network.

As a result, community members backed Proposal 16, a governance proposal which would revoke 2,450,000 – or 98% – of the wallet’s $JUNO.X tokens and return them to a community pool. 

Before the proposal passed, the so-called “Juno Whale” claimed to be an investment group rather than an individual. They argued that the tokens received from the airdrop belong to the clients, and the user manages clients’ properties. 

However, that argument did not win over members of the ecosystem – 40.85% of them voted in favor of moving forward with the proposal. 

However, now that it’s passed, it won’t necessarily be a cakewalk to take those funds away. The change will require a hard fork, which is a pretty large change to a network – one of the most famous hard forks in crypto history involved Ethereum’s DAO hack, which a user exploited to steal millions of dollars. They ultimately “rolled back” that hack – and in many ways, this is similar to what the Juno community is doing now. They’re treating this like an exploit, or an engagement of wrongdoing.

However, some members of the community – presumably representing the other 33.76% of votes which voted “No” and the 3.59% which voted “NoWithVeto” – say that the real wrongdoing is taking money from people. Developers pointed out that such a step could undermine community members’ trust and defeat the purpose of blockchain technology.

Perhaps the discourse around Proposal 16 is more interesting than the financial and social ramifications – it demonstrates that even if transactions are “immutable” on blockchains, on-chain governance can disrupt the “uncensorable” and “immutable” nature of the tech. Or, in this case, they can take over $100 million from an investor.

For the Juno community members, the challenge is not over yet. The next step will be to vote again on the software that will implement the proposed changes. 

Earlier this week, the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club ($BAYC.NFT) launched ApeCoin, an Ethereum token representing ownership in the ApeCoin DAO. The token – and ownership in the DAO – will allow holders to participate in governance, receive rewards, and make proposals.

As part of that launch, Bored Ape Yacht Club or Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT holders were offered 15% of the $APE.X tokens in an airdrop. That airdrop made many Yacht Club members even more wealthy than they already were – and many of them took the opportunity to take profits. 

It helped that CEXes such as Coinbase, FTX, Binance, and Gemini jumped at the opportunity to list the asset. However, the downward pressure sent $APE.X’s price collapsing over 80% in its first day of trading – falling from over $20 to a low of $6.48. 

In retrospect, it was probably inevitable that people would come back – $APE.X reversed a good portion of its losses today, rising 60% to $14.00.

The team behind the Bored Apes, Yuga Labs, indicated that $APE.X wouldn’t just be just a coin for the Apes. Among other things, they hope to leverage $APE.X in a greater context – and perhaps their partnership with Animoca Games and their recent acquisition of the CryptoPunks will play a role in that.

2020 presidential candidate and cryptomaxi Andrew Yang is merging crypto and politics in a new DAO. This week, he founded GoldenDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that deals with Asian American and Pacific Islander community issues.

GoldenDAO’s mission is to “collectively advance AAPI solidarity and empowerment through real-world events and gatherings, and web3 infrastructure and initiatives.” As part of the plan, the strategy includes fighting social injustice and hate crimes, redefining Asian culture and art, and destigmatizing Asian mental health issues. The site launched on the same day as the first anniversary of the Atlanta spa shooting that killed eight people, including six Asian Americans.

Membership in GoldenDAO is available through the purchase of an NFT, with the public launch set for Mar. 31. A total of 2,000 NFTs are available for purchase from the public mint, with prices ranging from 1.28 $ETH.X (or $3,600) to 0.88 $ETH.X (or $3,350). Those who own the NFT will be able to attend GoldenDAO in-person meetups at NFT events in Los Angeles, New York, and Miami this year.

This is not Yang’s first time betting on DAOs. Previously, he founded Lobby3, an advocacy group advocating web3 policies in Washington, D.C. The latest announcement highlights DAO’s different use cases as well as how the use of DAOs can be applied in workplaces, social clubs, and restaurants.