Aaron Wright: The LAO – DAOs From a Legal Perspective

01/26/21 • 77 min

Epicenter - Learn about Crypto, Blockchain, Ethereum, Bitcoin and Distributed Technologies

Aaron Wright is a professor at Cardozo Law School and Co-founder of OpenLaw. Before this he was a successful entrepreneur, having sold his first company to Wikia - the for-profit version of Wikipedia. Today Aaron is a renowned thought-leader in the blockchain space at the forefront of DAOs. Last year OpenLaw launched The LAO, a DAO on Ethereum for investors looking to earn returns on Ethereum-based projects.

Aaron joins us to share his expert legal knowledge on all things DAO, and discuss his latest projects the LAO and Flamingo DAO.

Topics covered in this episode:

Aaron's background and how he got into blockchain and the DAO space
The early vision for DAOs
Stakeholder participation in DAOs
Wrapped and unwrapped DAOs
Proxy voting on DAOs
Governance mechanisms
The multi-token model
How DAOs are characterized under law and the legislation surrounding them
The Wyoming Blockchain Bill
The different categories of DAOs
Where does Aaron see the DAO ecosystem headed in the future

Episode links:

Sponsors:

1inch: Discover the best rates and most efficient swapping routes across leading DEXes. Optimize on gas cost and execute DeFi trades faster with 1inch V2 - https://epicenter.rocks/1inch

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/376

Aaron joins us to share his expert legal knowledge on all things DAO, and discuss his latest projects the LAO and Flamingo DAO.

Topics covered in this episode:

Aaron's background and how he got into blockchain and the DAO space
The early vision for DAOs
Stakeholder participation in DAOs
Wrapped and unwrapped DAOs
Proxy voting on DAOs
Governance mechanisms
The multi-token model
How DAOs are characterized under law and the legislation surrounding them
The Wyoming Blockchain Bill
The different categories of DAOs
Where does Aaron see the DAO ecosystem headed in the future

Episode links:

Sponsors:

1inch: Discover the best rates and most efficient swapping routes across leading DEXes. Optimize on gas cost and execute DeFi trades faster with 1inch V2 - https://epicenter.rocks/1inch

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/376

Previous Episode

Trent Elmore: YAM Finance 🍠 – The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of the OG Foodcoin

During the DeFi Summer of 2020, YAM Finance launched with a bang, and had its share of ups and downs within its first couple of days. It started out as an experiment to bring together some of the more innovative ideas in the space. It sparked a movement which brought massive attention to yield farming, and started the food token craze. After a bug was discovered in the v1 contract, many thought the project was dead. But no, the team and community have been working diligently to bring the protocol back to life and it's now a community-run DAO innovating at the intersection of decentralized governance and programmable finance.

Trent Elmore is one of the creators of YAM. He joins us to talk about the incredibly swift birth of the project, the rebase mechanism, the treasury, the infamous bug and how they saved the project. He also shares some of the new upcoming products on the YAM Roadmap, and how a truly decentralized community is rebuilding its brand.

Topics covered in this episode:

Trent's background and how he got into crypto and DeFi
How YAM and food tokens were born
The team behind YAM
What was the vision of the project at the beginning?
The proposed utility of the protocol
How the treasury funding works in the context of the rebasing mechanism
The Game Theory for YAM holders
How they built their communities and choose tokens
YAM's connection between their governance and Snapshot
The infamous bug in V1 and how they recovered from it
What plans do they have for the treasury and products going forward, including the recent UMA collaboration

Episode links:

Sponsors:

1inch: Discover the best rates and most efficient swapping routes across leading DEXes. Optimize on gas cost and execute DeFi trades faster with 1inch V2 - https://epicenter.rocks/1inch

This episode is hosted by Sunny Aggarwal & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/375

Next Episode

Harsh Rajat: Ethereum Push Notification Service – The Decentralized Notification Protocol

Ethereum Push Notification Service (EPNS) emerged from the Indian startup scene in 2020. It's a decentralized notification protocol that enables DApps to send push notifications to Ethereum wallet users. EPNS also provides incentives to users that opt-in for push notifications, creating the possibility for an ecosystem communities around topic-centric channels.

We are joined by Harsh Rajat, Project Lead and Co-founder of EPNS. We chatted about why and how the protocol was built, its technical structure, the purpose of incentivizing users to receive notifications, and how they tackle spam.

Topics covered in this episode:

Harsh's background and how he got involved in crypto
The beginning of Ethereum Push Notification Service
The design patterns considered when building EPNS
What is a decentralized push notification service?
Unique use cases that could benefit from DeFi push notifications
The structure of the protocol and how it actually works
The purpose of incentivizing users to receive notifications
The Spam Score - how EPNS filter spam
How EPNS plan to onboard and incentivize wallets to integrate

Episode links:

Sponsors:

1inch: Discover the best rates and most efficient swapping routes across leading DEXes. Optimize on gas cost and execute DeFi trades faster with 1inch V2 - https://epicenter.rocks/1inch

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Sunny Aggarwal. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/377