A version of this article appeared in our The Decentralised newsletter on October 1. Sign up here.
GM, Tim here.
EigenLayer’s token hits the market.
Mango Markets settles with the SEC.
How two DeFi founders turned their rivalry into a bromance.
EIGEN token trades
Six months after EigenLayer airdropped its token, holders can finally sell it.
On Tuesday, the Eigen Foundation, the non-profit that manages the EIGEN governance token, upgraded EIGEN’s code to make it tradable.
Traders are flocking to EIGEN hoping to profit from the volatility.
Bulls have a decent amount going for them:
Estimates put only 2.5% of EIGEN’s supply as available for trading.
EIGEN unlocks for the protocol’s team and investors won’t begin for one year.
The wider crypto market is pumping.
There are also reasons to be cautious:
Whales hold a lot of tokens. The top wallet has over 2.5 million.
Most airdropped tokens this year have failed to rally.
EIGEN’s fully-diluted valuation is already over $7 billion.
Tokens that launched at similar high valuations to EIGEN have performed poorly.
The EIGEN token’s May launch was marred by controversy.
Recipients criticised the confusing communication surrounding the announcement, the small number of tokens allocated for the airdrop, and the decision to exclude US users.
In response, EigenLayer addressed the confusion and increased airdrop allocations for small users.
SEC ends Mango DAO
The US Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday a settlement with the companies behind Solana DeFi protocol Mango Markets.
Mango DAO, Blockworks Foundation, and Mango Labs agreed to collectively pay fines of $700,000 without admitting or denying the allegations from the SEC.
The settlement also stipulates the organisations shut down the Mango DAO collective that governs the protocol.
They agreed to destroy their MNGO tokens, to request the removal of MNGO from trading platforms, and to refrain from soliciting any trading platform to allow trading in or offering or selling MNGO.
Separately, pseudonymous Mango DAO member Daffy plans to file a legal complaint against two of the DAO’s leaders — John Kramer and Max Schneider — over alleged fraud.
A DeFi bromance
Stani Kulechov, the founder of Aave, and Rune Christensen, the co-founder of Sky, haven’t always seen eye to eye.
Neither have their communities.
But that’s all in the past, the protocol’s founders told DL News in interviews.
The two DeFi giants are now working closer than ever.
“We have this DeFi renaissance moment where people are looking back at what’s been built in DeFi and what actually has legs and fundamentals,” said Kulechov.
“That’s Aave, and that’s Sky.”
“It’s about sending a message to the broader space,” said Christensen. “Sky and Aave can figure out how to work together.”
This week in DeFi governance
VOTE: Arbitrum DAO increases security with treasury time lock extension
VOTE: Uniswap DAO onboards Forse by StableLab as a data service provider
VOTE: Jupiter DAO decides what to do with 215 million unclaimed tokens
Post of the week
Crypto Twitter sums up EigenLayer and its EIGEN token.
Ah yes, another project using blockchain technology, which nobody can explain the purpose of, valued in the billions of dollars
Bidding
— Sisyphus (@0xSisyphus) October 1, 2024
What we’re watching
Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, founders of disgraced crypto trading firm Three Arrows Capital, have spun up a new memecoin investing fund and launched a token for it.
run it back @threearrowzcap
— 朱溯 🐂 (3/AC) (@zhusu) September 27, 2024
Got a tip about DeFi? Reach out at tim@dlnews.com.
