- Katharine Minarik, legal manager of Laboratories of the Uniswap, testified to a chamber committee.
- Legislators focus on DEFI in the midst of new legislation.
- DAO governance has been examined.
Once limited to social media, obscure internet forums and niche publications, Dao Drama arrived in Washington.
During an audience on Wednesday concerning a major Crypto bill which crosses the congress, the representative Sean Casten, a democrat of Illinois, spoke of a recent quarrel on governance at the United Stateswap Dao.
“If you accept that decentralization consists in distributing voting power among your holders of plain tokens,” said the Congress member, “the fact that the UNISWAP Foundation cannot make decisions unilaterally-does that have nothing to weaken that it is not decentralized?”
Katharine Minarik, the legal director of the Uniswap Labs, postponed by declaring that her employer is a legal entity distinct from the UNISWAP Foundation.
“I’m quite sure that the UNISWAP Foundation can not change the governance of the unilateral government,” she said at the hearing.
Decentralization debate
The brief exchange suggests that the legislators go beyond knowledge at the surface of the cryptography ecosystem and become more familiar with the main actors in the world of decentralized finance.
The Chamber is considering new legislation that would establish road rules for cryptographic projects, with fewer regulations for those deemed decentralized.
The unusual discussion also demonstrates that Congress, an entity famous for its labyrinthine complexity, is now walking with its own complications – DAOS, organizations that govern a large part of DEFI.
Although the debate on what decentralization means and how it should be legally defined is to start, the very fact that this happens at Congress is an important step for Defi.
The UNISWAP DAO is a cooperative led by members who ostensibly manages the Uniswap protocol, one of the greatest decentralized exchanges based on Ethereum.
Although the protocol is self-executing and largely immutable-that is to say that the software runs without human intervention and its basic characteristics cannot be modified-the DAO wins a reduction in each transaction on Uniswap.
And investors who have the uniswap, united, control token control how this money is spent, among others.
But it is only an actor of the Uniswap ecosystem: there are also uniswap laboratories, the development company for profitable software that created each version of the Uniswap protocol.
Voting delayed
There is the UNISWAP Foundation, a non -profit organization funded by the DAO and “dedicated to the conduct of the growth, sustainability and decentralization of the Uniswap community”, according to its website.
Last year, the Foundation was criticized when it indefinitely delayed a long -awaited vote on a proposal aimed at diverting part of the Uniswap income directly to holders of UNI token.
The Uniswap Dao had debated the activation of this so-called cost switch for years. However, the previous proposals did not largely progress due to the fear of presenting themselves to the use of American securities laws.
The foundation did not provide a reason for the delay in the vote, beyond the indication of an anonymous stakeholder had “raised a new problem relating to this work which requires additional diligence to our veterinarian”.
“By virtue of the invoice, would Uniswap be required to detect and check the identities of customers?
– Rep. Sean Casten
More recently, Uniswap Labs has published a Uniswap brand blockchain without consulting the DAO.
A member of Dao Uniswap prominent and pseudonym who passes by Pepo made waves this year when they announced that they would no longer serve as a “delegate” for the cooperative, citing the alleged control of the Foundation on the United Affairs.
“If governance becomes a performance – if the results feel sculpted before they are proposed – then we no longer participate in decentralization,” they wrote on X.
This missive aroused a response from the Executive Director of the UNISWAP Foundation, Devin Walsh.
She said that the participation of DAO members “is essential to the success of the Uniswap ecosystem” and that the “takes their comments seriously”.
Navigation on this ecosystem has now landed at the Congress, and Minarik, the lawyer for the Uniswap, and other experts have been invited to clarify what the last cryptographic legislation would mean for Defi.
Required to disclose
“UNISWAP has recently been criticized on the United Foundation, having disproportionate power over other stakeholders, in particular by continuing changes such as the launch of a blockchain without consulting your holders of governance tokens,” said the Casten Congress member during the exchange with Minarik.
Casten has also pressed Minarik on the language of the bill, which would exempt the protocols of regulatory monitoring.
“By virtue of the invoice, as you read, would Uniswap be required to detect and verify the identities of customers?” Asked Casten.
“Would the UNISWAP be required to disclose information related to the ownership of your business, management, conflicts of interest, risk management, procedures, policies, compliance procedures for anti-money laundering laws?”
Minarik said it would not be adding: “We have other obligations.”
Huge barn carrier
Casten said that crypto leaders had not shown that they were impatient to respond to the concerns of the legislators concerning money laundering and other financial crimes.
“If we have obtained this huge barn carrier, we will simply define this generic thing as DEFI and you can whiten all your money through there, my God, why does the industry don’t say:” I don’t want to be part of it? “” Said Casten, his voice rising.
“I don’t want to be part of it,” replied Minarik.
Aleks Gilbert East DL News“DEFI correspondent based in New York. You can reach it at Aleks@dlnews.com.
