CFTC Lawsuit Against Ooki DAO, $250,000 Settlement with bZx Creates New Precedents
The lawsuit and settlement suggest the use of governance tokens for decision-making in a Defi protocol doesn’t make it immune from enforcement.
“A key bZeroX objective in transferring control of the bZx Protocol (now the Ooki Protocol) to the bZx DAO (now the Ooki DAO) was to attempt to render the bZx DAO, by its decentralized nature, enforcement-proof. Put simply, the bZx founders believed they had identified a way to violate the Act and Regulations, as well as other laws, without consequence.”
It’s the first instance when a decentralized autonomous organization has been sued by the Commission. It’s also an indictment of the token holders who participated in the protocol’s governance process.
Also,
CFTC Files Its First Case Against A DAO, bZeroX, For Operating Illegally
Miles Jennings, head of decentralization and council at a prominent venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, went on to say;
“It’s that the CFTC is trying to apply the CEA [Commodity Exchange Act] to a protocol and DAO at all. The CEA should be applied to the frontend and it’s [sic] operators that facilitated access for U.S. persons. Applying compliance burdens to protocols and DAOs is the equivalent of holding the creators of email liable because criminals can use it to commit crimes.”
mmm... not really. They are treating a DAO as a corporate structure, which it is. One cannot claim that a DAO has governance powers and then say that it is not responsible for the governance proposals that are passed.
The bZx blog makes some interesting reading (or listening), just to see how they got their ideas so spectacularly wrong. I cannot find the promised whitepaper on the DAO - if anybody can, then please post a link. It strikes me that the real blow to the DAO concept is the inability to experiment with its structures. The lesson seems to be: don't do it in the USA - or at least, don't do it while making money.
There are no freedoms within a psychopathocracy, apart from the law. The empire is fighting back. Not for your benefit - but for theirs.
If you wish to design something that gives true freedom to others, the only way is to then remove yourself and be free from the legal association. That's hard to do, but Satoshi is a clear example. Doesn't matter if he is a real human or an agency construct, it is the removal of control. Because the thing that strikes me in these cases is that the lawsuit is not just against a DAO, but also against individuals.
Sorry, but someone needs to explain why Americans are so naive and stupid!? OK, not just Americans - anybody who resides in a financial control zone. It seems to me totally obvious to remove oneself from any defi construct, eg create an offshore company first and obfuscate yourself!
Also note that some of these offshore money havens already have simple crypto laws. Being so small, they can just implement laws quickly. The whole cryptoverse is being set up to be no different to the current monetarist game.
Given that global debt is greater than calculated assets, the coming crash will be of global benefit!
Hehe, yes that's a good question and really obvious.
I have had to deal with this issue all my life as a German or European.
But setting up an offshore company is by no means enough, we have advised many investment companies from the USA, but very few have listened to us, most have simply paid the high price of failure afterwards.
Covering up always flies up sometime, and then they are all there the tax, financial and judicial authorities that then punish it !
One of the recent cases from this category is the case of the musician and former soccer star wife Shakira, which her inadequate planning now flies around the ears with the result of possibly 8 years in prison for tax fraud and a back payment of approx. 15 million euros to the Spanish state in which she has unfortunately lived too long with her ex-husband Piquet, plus probably another fine of 50-100% of the sum, Messi and Ronaldo already know the game.
It would make more sense in all cases to be clearly and transparently outside in such constructs, which is not achieved by upstream companies but by giving up the assets if you own any in such a construct, and that is only possible through a foundation because here you are no longer the economic owner, but only the beneficiary of the income and even that you do not have to be but could be a holding for the purpose of lower taxation than the natural person -if you have your tax residence in a country where such income is taxed-.
In short:
The world is now largely run by foundations - no shareholders, no dividends, a smooth transition of governance and an accumulation of assets. This is the billionaire-deal to become one - to eventually place their wealth at the disposal of the "great plan", whatever that may be.
But for a crypto project, that seems like a lot of fees to rack up at the start. Altho that could all be done very soon after an early funding round. It's like the fees needed to be legitimised within a jurisdiction - you just need to pay for it - if you have the money. It's a toll-gate, a gate-keeping function. Brings back memories, many years ago, investigated setting up an investment trust ;-)
oh that`s not only a millionaire's game, that goes also with completely normal cases!
The companies themselves cost yes not really much, more importantly is the concept, if that is not correct is possibly everything for the bin like with Shakira!
And there are legal ways to still have the finger on the trigger so to be able to decide where the money goes, it is ultimately always about the money to save the former owners over the duration of their lives and that of their descendants from the tax and to have the opportunity to finance meaningful projects or sponsor not useless state excesses that help no one except the politicians
With crypto this is relatively easy to achieve you just have to try with the first account to stay a little below the pickup limit for high taxation.
With the profit, the structure is then created and financed, then the remaining coins are transferred to the structure, which is possibly the only taxable process, and any subsequent profits (through price increases that are expected in the near future) are well kept and tax-free.
The whole thing can be implemented with less than 5000$, if more profit has already accrued it will be more expensive because of the taxes ;)
But for the financial freedom of one and his family that´s worth not only to think about it but act like that, its money that on ehas earned not the state in which one lives ;)
Interesting. I'm about to put this in motion, but still undecided the best jurisdiction.
indeed !
and hey bringing it in motion is the best you can do, any day counts !
Regarding the jurisdictions that is the only tricky part, it depends on where your country of residence (or citizenship) is, if its in the US its the most complicated case, if its in Canada or Australia or Germany and Spain its a bit less complicate, if its in the Asian region or the middle east it will be not a big thing.
I see you like Sicily ;-) A wonderful mashup of civilisations.
Maybe we should have a proper chat about this :-)
hehe yes indeed, !
Yes Sicily is like Cyprus and Spain one of my three Homebases with plenty of positive things ;)
A proper chat, why not ?!
The beast that is the law and gubment will not die without a huge fight. Even when the battle is over they will fight
Where exactly are they losing?
Sadly nowhere, even the champions of their downfall are unknowingly often playing their side