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(Kitco News)-MakerDAO, the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol responsible for issuing the DAI decentralized stablecoin, continues to be one of the best examples of how a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) is supposed to function after the successful approval of the Maker Constitution.

According to a press release shared with Kitcoin Crypto, the MakerDAO community has voted in favor of a governance poll on the MakerDAO forum intended to ratify the Maker Constitution, which will gradually change the operations of MakerDAO and enable the implementation of its Endgame Era roadmap.

The Maker Constitution is a set of 11 constitutional articles and 12 scope frameworks that lay down the fundamental conditions for MakerDAO to move into Endgame Era, which charts a restructuring proposal for the DAO and outlines a path for MakerDAO and DAI to achieve maximum levels of simplicity, decentralization, and resilience.

Endgame is designed to allow MakerDAO to expand its money market investments in the short term and increase protocol revenue, which will be used to buy decentralized collateral such as ETH and staked ETH to reinforce the DAI backing, ensure its stability and maximize its level of decentralization in the long term.

In the months ahead, the implementation of the Maker Constitution will enable public good and charitable purpose for MakerDAO; achieve a maximum decentralized-state for the DAI stablecoin; incentivize voters towards transparency through regulated governance; elect members of MakerDAO with defined responsibilities surrounding MakerDAOs governance operations; and introduce SubDAOs as self-governing and self-sustaining entities within the MakerDAO ecosystem, the press release said.

Once Endgame Era has been fully implemented, MakerDAO will enter the Endgame State, the ultimate vision for DAI and the Maker ecosystem. In Endgame State, SubDAOs will be able to operate as independent entities using their own tokens, helping to increase MakerDAOs level of accessibility and decentralization.

There will be three categories of SubDAOs: FacilitatorDAOs, CreatorDAOs and ProtectorDAOS.

FacilitatorDAOs will be responsible for organizing the Decentralized Workforce of Maker, CreatorDAOs will focus on growth and innovation in the Maker ecosystem and ProtectorDAOs have been tasked with allocating collateral to real-world assets and protecting MakerDAO against physical and legal threats to its real-world asset collateral.

Endgame Era is also designed to increase the resiliency of the DAI stablecoin.

As part of the rollout of the Constitution, Maker plans on improving accessibility by providing easy-to-use software tools, such as data dashboards and AI chatbots, to make the rules, processes and governance results auditable for all DAO participants.

The Constitution also installs the Constitutional Voter Committees (CVCs), Constitutional Delegates (CDs) and Constitutional Conservers (CCs), which fundamentally restructure how the DAO is organized and help to increase its level of decentralization.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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MakerDAO's 'Endgame Era' begins with the ratification of 'Constitution' - Kitco NEWS

In the heyday of the Manning Centre Networking Conference rebranded the Canada Strong and Free Networking Conference in 2020, but with Preston Manning still very much in the foreground keynote speakers from other countries were often a real highlight. Watching Americas Ron Paul defend a brand of libertarianism that simply doesnt exist in Canada, or Britains Nigel Farage wax smarmy-eloquent about the Brexit adventure, younger conservatives in particular seemed to revel in exotic tales from countries where the political spectrum is more than an inch wide.

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Then they would go back to fighting the Liberals tooth and nail over small differences.

One vision often espoused at the conference was always more than a pipe dream, though: Leaving the provinces alone to manage the affairs explicitly delegated to them in the Constitution, and as much as possible even beyond that. Nowadays, its one of very few predictable signature differences between liberal and conservative governments.

Consider health care. COVID-19 smacked many provinces upside the head with respect to their capacities and frailties. Under traditional service-delivery models, the sums necessary to improve outcomes and prepare for future emergencies are astronomical to the point that long-term atrophy is a far more likely outcome. Innovation is critical to avoiding that, and Ottawa shouldnt stand in the way.

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We (conservatives) run away from healthcare. We should run towards it, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith argued in an afternoon discussion with Canada Strong and Free Network director Jocelyn Bamford, defending her governments embrace of private health-care delivery and other innovations.

Part of the reason why health care doesnt work is its being operated in this top-down (model), but we can have a private delivery public funding, stay within the Canada Health Act, and bring all the principles we know work in free enterprise to this most expensive service, Smith argued.

Even the federal Liberals seem to realize the wisdom of this. The strings attached to recently concluded federal-provincial health-care agreements are relatively flimsy and uncontroversial: That improving long-term care be a focus, for example (surely no one disagrees after the pandemic nightmare), or that provinces commit to providing comparable health-care data to be compiled in Ottawa (which is exactly the sort of thing the federal government should be insisting upon, the better to determine what works and what doesnt).

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Child care is another good example where confident conservatives ought to have no problem winning the decentralization argument. Canadian progressives tend to be obsessed with licensed and regulated child-care spaces over all others, but in an afternoon discussion about the new middle class, Renze Nauta of the conservative think tank Cardus noted that licensed and regulated child-care spaces on the whole are much less flexible in terms of operating hours.

Especially nowadays, with the rise of gig work and more fluid work arrangements, flexibility is precisely what middle-class parents need, Nauta argued. And the middle-class voter is who everyone is after.

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Quebec City MP Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievres Quebec lieutenant, issued an explicit invitation to the other provinces to follow Quebecs lead and band together to wring whatever they can out of Ottawa. And he trod near heresy to make his point: It is true that Quebec is unique in Canada, but so is Alberta. So is the East Coast, Ontario, British Columbia and the Prairies.

(Poilievre) wants to make this country a better place for families and businesses, and he realizes that provinces are unique and have their own unique challenges, Paul-Hus added. Unlike Justin Trudeau, he doesnt believe in one size fits all.

With provincial-rights maximalists like Smith in Edmonton (assuming she is re-elected in May) and Scott Moe in Regina, a Poilievre-led government would seem to offer a golden age of decentralization. But Poilievre himself remains the biggest question mark on that front.

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He is proudly interventionist on housing policy, for example at least if provinces and municipalities want giant novelty cheques from his future government: If junior jurisdictions dont get out of the way of building new homes, Poilievre vows, there wont be any federal funding for housing.

We had a deal in this country, didnt we? You work hard, you follow the law, you get a good house in a good safe neighbourhood, you make a good living and a great life, Poilievre said in his Thursday afternoon speech to the Strong and Free crowd. The deal is broken. Look around you. We have 35-year-olds living in their parents basements because (of) the cost of housing, of mortgage payments, of rental payments.

Hes exaggerating about the deal millions upon millions of Canadians have lived happy lives without owning property. But the cost of all kinds of housing strikes strikes me as a justified intervention after decades of policy failure. If provinces and cities want to go Full NIMBY, they can pay for it themselves. If anything threatens serious social unrest in Canada, its millennials and Gen-Zers who dreamed of owning a house in Toronto or Vancouver and now cant even afford an apartment.

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Poilievres stance on addiction, on the other hand no to safe supply, no to safe injection, yes only to treatment is a wholly unjustified intrusion into what ought to be provincial jurisdiction. Its based on a delusion and a false dichotomy that he shares with Smith and many other conservatives. And its deadly.

The delusion, espoused by Poilievre and Smith alike on Thursday, is that Alberta has done much better than average with its recovery-based model. It has not.

Albertas opioid-overdose death toll in the first six months of 2022 was 35 per 100,000 second-highest in the country, a not-very-impressive seven points lower than ostensibly out-of-control British Columbia, and fully 18 points higher than ostensibly out-of-control Ontario, both of which offer safe-consumption and (more recently) safe-supply.

The false dichotomy is between offering addicts rehabilitation and offering a reliably non-lethal supply and safe place to consume it in the meantime. The supply and the safe space keep them alive. Thats literally the whole point.

Law-and-order issues are catnip to politicians, and Canadians are right to be appalled by the mayhem plaguing many of our cities. But the bedrock conservative principle that government policy is best designed as close to home as possible is an excellent one especially when scores of lives are at stake.

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Chris Selley: Poilievre leaves provinces wondering if he really believes in them - National Post

Keep an Eye on These Coins

The cryptocurrency market had a strong week overall, with nearly all tokens seeing a sizable increase in prices, perhaps because of global economic turmoil. Theres no guarantee this will continue, though that wont stop market enthusiasts from celebrating the fact Bitcoin crossed $28,000. The upcoming weeks will be ones to watch, especially for a select few assets that have performed particularly well in the last week.

This week, we examine XRP (XRP), Nexo (NEXO), Flare Network (FLR), XDC Network (XDC), and Litecoin (LTC). In selecting these assets, we have considered several factors, including, but not limited to, positive technical developments, significant news events, and noticeable changes in price.

The XRP coin (XRP) was one of the biggest gainers of the week, with the cryptocurrency up by 18%. The price bump was likely due to the fact that investors are becoming increasingly confident that Ripple will win its lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The SEC alleged in the lawsuit XRP is a security and Ripple had conducted an unregistered securities offering in the form of an ICO. Ripple contested SEC's allegations and is reportedly confident of a win. As such, the coin is increasing in value. XRP is now priced at around $0.46, having started last week at $0.38 (see chart below).

The Nexo token (NEXO) was one of the biggest gainers of the week, surging almost 17%. This increase could possibly be a result of Nexo Pro's partnership with institutional crypto data platform, The Tie. The partnership will see the institutional-level tools offered to advanced traders.

Nexo also saw a noticeable increase in development activity toward the latter half of the week, which is another positive sign. NEXO is now hovering at around $0.74 after being priced at $0.64 seven days ago (see chart below).

The Flare Network (FLR) coin increased by 15%, likely as a result of its Songbird Test Proposal 02 going live on the network. This proposal focuses on increasing the decentralization of the Flare Time Series Oracle (FTSO) by introducing a secondary reward band.

In other words, this band increases the number of data providers that can be rewarded, and these providers are the entities that offer reliable data to dApps through a mechanism, which is the FTSO itself.

Another potential reason for the price bump is MathWallet now supports Flare. FLR is now changing hands at $0.034 and was valued at $0.030 last week (see chart below).

The XDC network (XDC) saw a 14% increase in price over the past week. This may be due to the increasing development of the network.

It is now easier to deploy smart contracts, which allows for the creation of dApps. The Pythonic smart contract language Vyper is used for this purpose. One XDC is now valued at around $0.040 and was priced at $0.035 last week (see chart below).

Litecoin (LTC) experienced a 13% increase in price, possibly because its value often follows Bitcoin. The latter has had a good few weeks, and the assets that trail it often correlate strongly with its movement.

Additionally, whales large holders of a particular cryptocurrency have reportedly been accumulating LTC this month, which could also be the reason behind the surge in price. LTC is now approximately $92.5 and was valued at $82 last week (see chart below).

As of the date this article was written, the author does not own any of the assets discussed here.

The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed on Investopedia are for informational purposes online. Read ourwarranty and liability disclaimerfor more info.

Continued here:

Cryptocurrencies To Watch: Week of March 27 - Investopedia

In every single corner of the crypto landscape, one name pops up: Binance.

Run by Changpeng CZ Zhao, the worlds largest crypto exchange is a dominant force in everything from Bitcoin trading and digital art to venture capital. With its power and influence only increasing after the collapse last year of Sam Bankman-Frieds FTX empire, the inconvenient truth is that Binance has a grip on the $1.1 trillion industry that has few parallels in traditional finance. Thats despite all the decentralization talk from cryptos true believers.

So the news Monday that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Binance and Chief Executive Officer Zhao for allegedly evading federal laws and operating an illegal digital-asset exchange threatens to send shock waves across the world of virtual currencies. Bitcoin fell as much as 4.5% after the lawsuit was filed.

Its a big deal for both Binance and Zhao, who famously became cryptos singular titan after contributing to the demise of FTX. The CFTC is seeking permanent trading and registration bans in the enforcement action it filed as well as unspecified penalties and restitution. Its one of several U.S. authorities including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice that have been investigating Binances activities.

For all the excitement that accompanied the arrest of former wunderkind Bankman-Fried, Zhaos sway over the industry is far larger meaning the fallout may be that much wider. The company is the biggest target by far in a U.S. regulatory crackdown that has engulfed other big players, from U.S. exchange Coinbase Global Inc. to entrepreneur Justin Sun and fallen algorithmic stablecoin king Do Kwon.

After Zhao co-founded the exchange in 2017 and embarked on an acquisition spree, Binance has morphed into a brokerage, digital wallet, venture fund, custody service, data provider, digital-art marketplace and token issuer all in one.

So far this month, the exchange has accounted for about 70% of all trading volumes across the spot market, compared with just 6% for Coinbase Global Inc., according to digital-asset data provider Kaiko. Its the kind of market heft that dwarfs the role of Apple Inc. or Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. in the smartphone market, for example.

In a popular product known as perpetual futures, Binance controlled a record 62% of global volumes in 2022, a CoinGecko report shows. In the U.S., where Binance started a separate platform in 2019, its accounted for a more modest share of spot trading at nearly 7% over the past year, Kaiko data show.

The move will reverberate across an industry that boomed outside regulated finance in a decade of low interest rates before Ponzi schemes, exchange mishaps and more helped snuff out speculative euphoria.

For critics, the charges will look like delayed justice for a firm that has for years refused to name a corporate parent or even its headquarters, amid allegations of corporate mismanagement.

Diehard believers will either cling to the bull case that a new era of regulatory action will legitimize the industry or will argue crypto needs to go back to the fringes to live up to its libertarian vision.

Some crypto fans may well shrug off the charges, yet Binances many ties to traditional finance may now be at risk. Institutions that have flirted with crypto will have to weigh new charges against the liquidity offered by the worlds largest exchange. The CFTC complaint noted that Binance had courted U.S. institutions and directed VIP clients to open Binance accounts via shell companies.

Binances ties with traditional banking channels have also recently frayed after Signature Bank, which had been supporting its dollar transactions, went under and Paysafe, which did the same for trades in the British pound, stopped the service due to regulatory risks.

Large reach

Born in China, Zhao moved to Vancouver when he was 12 and became a Canadian citizen. With a computer science degree from McGill University, he began a career building trading systems, including a stint at Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

In 2013, Zhao was running his own software company in Shanghai when he discovered Bitcoin over a poker game with the co-founder of BTC China, Bobby Lee, and tech investor Ron Cao. After working at Blockchain.info and OKCoin, he started Binance.

His expertise and the lack of material crypto regulation have helped make Binance a global giant. In decentralized finance a corner of crypto where trading runs on software rather than any corporate platform Binance also has its BNB Chain, a network whose independence has always been in question. Its own token BNB is the fourth-largest in the world, with a total value of roughly $62 billion, CoinGecko data show.

As the exchange drew more retail traders, a host of regulators have issued loud warnings, including from Malta, Japan and the UK. Binance has subsequently sought to strike a more conciliatory tone. It expanded its compliance team, registered with regulators in some jurisdictions and admitted to past gaps in compliance.

Binance Holdings Ltd., a Cayman Islands entity, owns the exchanges trademarks and is generally presumed to be the main entity. It was named in the CFTC suit, along with two Binance firms in Ireland and former chief compliance officer Samuel Lim.

In jurisdictions where owners have to be disclosed, the exchanges local entities are typically owned by CZ alone. Unlike FTX, it is not clear whether there are any external investors in Binance. The seed round for its U.S. arm raised money from Circle Ventures, VanEck and RRE Ventures.

(With assistance from Dave Liedtka.)

___

2023 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Binance isn't FTX. It's much bigger and more systemically important ... - Victoria Advocate

Decrypting DeFi is Decrypt's DeFi email newsletter. (art: Grant Kempster)

Just as DAOs find more traction in the industry, so too have a series of different tools to measure how decentralized autonomous organizations stack up alongside one another.

Now the question emerges: What makes one DAO better than another?

Sure, you can use the size of their treasury as a metric, but its also important that an autonomous organization is also decentralized, something one may crudely measure by determining the number of token holders.

Then theres voter apathy and the myriad ways one measures how active those token holders actually are.

Even the number of token holders is a splotchy metric. Wallet addresses dont equal the number of users one for one; oftentimes one user can have multiple wallets, each of which may be holding tokens for the same project.

If one person, with 150 different wallets, holds 60% of a tokens supply across all those wallets, is a project really decentralized?

Its sort of like measuring the quality of various democracies around the world; its super messy and theres clearly no one right answer.

Some DAOs maximize for decentralization, trustlessness and transparency. Others will focus on efficiency, with a focus on a sufficient decentralization to avoid capture or control, Snapshots head of growth Nathan van der Heyden told Decrypt. Worst than that, some start off as the first, and then become the second, and vice-versa.

To make clearer how difficult it is to rank DAOs, let's look at a few examples.

According to OpenOrgs, Uniswap currently has a treasury of $2.5 billion. Much farther down the list is Decentraland, with a treasury of $88,666. If we flip over to DeepDAO, a convenient data dashboard for DAO data, Uniswaps community has posted just 124 proposals. Conversely, Decentralands community has made roughly 2,000 different governance proposals.

A high number of proposals certainly seems like evidence that a community is highly-active in stewarding the projects direction. But if those proposals fall outside the scope of what a DAO can actually do to influence a project, then it doesnt really matter.

The Web2 equivalent would be something like spam mail; just because youre firing off emails doesnt mean you're actually being productive.

Finally, beyond measuring how active or large a DAO is, one need also be mindful of whether the communitys votes are actually being effectuated.

Last Summer, for example, TribeDAO took some flak on crypto Twitter after it announced it would be doing a revote on a very sensitive subject after its community had already voiced their wishes. This is a surefire route to kill voter enthusiasm.

Arbitrums newly-formed DAO has thus implemented self-executing votes, which means that as soon as a change is voted on, it will be pushed directly on-chain.

Ultimately, its quite the spectrum. DAOs come in all shapes and sizes, some optimizing for one metric while others optimize for another.

And some projects may only care about one thing.

For some DAOs, the price of the token can be a good representation of how well theyre achieving their mission, Snapshots van der Heyden told Decrypt.

Decrypting DeFi is our DeFi newsletter, led by this essay. Subscribers to our emails get to read the essay before it goes on the site. Subscribehere.

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All Centralized Firms Are AlikeBut Every DAO Is Decentralized in Its Own Way - Decrypt