DAOs, DeFi and Dollars: the Bold New World of Decentralized Entities

06/11/21 • 48 min

In the early days of blockchain technology, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) seemed like a far-out, unattainable idea. How could an organization, a company or a collective, ever manage itself without anyone in charge?

This episode is sponsored by PumaPay.io.

Then came the launch of The DAO, an Ethereum-based investment vehicle that subsequently collapsed due to a devastating hack, which in appropriating the acronym gave it a dirty name. It seemed real, functioning DAOs would forever be a pipe dream.

Yet, thanks largely to the success of decentralized finance (DeFi), DAOs are now here. They’re real.

In this week’s episode, we explore how developers and investors are working through the complex process of bridging the human and legal needs of the outside world with these complex, decentralized systems run by blockchains, automated smart contracts, “multisig” tokenized collateral agreements.

We were joined by two great guests, who helped us turn what might be otherwise seen as a nerdy topic into one of huge significance for the future of investing, innovation and economic development:

Rune Christensen, chief executive officer of the Maker Foundation, which founded MakerDAO, the first truly successful DeFi DAO on the Ethereum blockchain, which generates the algorithmic stablecoin, dai.

Ian Lee, managing director of IDEO Co-Lab Ventures and a co-founder of Syndicate, which enables groups of investors to fund DeFi projects and other ventures using DAOs and DAO-like structures.

750,000,000 PMA tokens are now up for grabs. By depositing today, you will become part of the next evolution of DeFi payments. Go to PumaPay.io.

Image credit: Nikontiger/iStock/Getty Images Plus/ modified by Coindesk

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is sponsored by PumaPay.io.

Yet, thanks largely to the success of decentralized finance (DeFi), DAOs are now here. They’re real.

We were joined by two great guests, who helped us turn what might be otherwise seen as a nerdy topic into one of huge significance for the future of investing, innovation and economic development:

Ian Lee, managing director of IDEO Co-Lab Ventures and a co-founder of Syndicate, which enables groups of investors to fund DeFi projects and other ventures using DAOs and DAO-like structures.

750,000,000 PMA tokens are now up for grabs. By depositing today, you will become part of the next evolution of DeFi payments. Go to PumaPay.io.

Image credit: Nikontiger/iStock/Getty Images Plus/ modified by Coindesk

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Previous Episode

Man and the Machine: DeFi's Regulation Dilemma

DeFi, as the world of decentralized finance is known, is growing up.

This episode is sponsored by PumaPay.io.

Venture money is being dedicated to the space, decentralized finance (DeFi) liquidity protocols are being upgraded to add flexibility, and so-called layer 2 solutions are being deployed to help scale this vibrant new, ever-evolving decentralized financial system while preserving decentralization. The community has also just successfully gone through a stress test in the form of a sharp decline in crypto prices, which produced none of the systemic risk fallout that some people had hypothesized would arise at such times for DiFi collateral contracts.

So, where does this strange new world of finance go from here? In part, that question is about governance and regulation. How will the decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) that run the DeFi ecosystem’s various interoperable protocols connect the choices of its human investors with the decentralized, pseudonymity-dependent, on-chain consensus mechanisms on which these smart contracts depend? And what, if anything, should or could external government regulators and internal self-regulators do to protect people if the machines that run it all go bad?

For insights into how this fascinating new environment is shaping up, listen in while we chat to Rebecca Rettig, general counsel of Aave, and Marc Boiron, general counsel at decentralized exchange dYdX, about all of the above.

750,000,000 PMA tokens are now up for grabs. By depositing today, you will become part of the next evolution of DeFi payments. Go to PumaPay.io.

Image credit: Adam Borkowski/Unsplash modified by CoinDesk

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Next Episode

Fighting the Trillion-Dollar Cybercrime Industry With ‘Blockchain Thinking’

As society moves increasingly online, so do the kinds of risks that businesses face. With cybercrime growing exponentially and businesses liabilities expanding as they accumulate giant honeypots of sensitive user data, this week’s Money Reimagined explores a new approach toward risk, one fueled by a blockchain mindset.

An analysis of the state of cybercrime with the explosion in ransomware attacks
The new mindset based on principles of openness and decentralization
The case for resiliency and cost-based risk tolerance over efficiency and total protection

This episode is sponsored by PumaPay.io.

Hosts Michael Casey and Sheila Warren are joined by Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer and head of global policy at Circle whose career was previously centered on radical insurance innovation, and digital pioneer Pindar Wong, chairman of VeriFi, an internet infrastructure consulting firm.

A recent report from Cybersecurity Ventures predicted cybercrime costs are on track to total $6 trillion this year. If cybercrime were a country, it would be the third latest economy in the world.

How can a blockchain mindset reduce those costs? The Colonial Pipeline attack was a case study in the danger of centralization. The wider distribution of value, data and attack points that’s inherent to decentralized blockchain technology, as well as its collective witness feature and the power of collective, iterative improvement in open-source development hints at more effective strategies for managing such risks.

It comes down to a different framing for how to strengthen security. The classical notion of “secured versus not secured” is a prohibitive way of thinking that ignores the grey areas of “at-risk.” Is a healthcare model, with different levels and types of sickness, a more constructive mindset?

With governments poised to introduce CBDCs around the world – tempting cybercriminals with the biggest honeypots of them all - a new antifragile risk-management framework is crucial for society as these changes shape the digital future.

750,000,000 PMA tokens are now up for grabs. By depositing today, you will become part of the next evolution of DeFi payments. Go to PumaPay.io.

Image credit: Andy /iStock/Getty Images Plus/ modified by Coindesk

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.