Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol BitDAO has completed its token auction, successfully raising more than 112,000 ETH.
The token auction took place on SushiSwap’s launchpad platform MISO on Aug 17. In a tweet announcing the results, BitDAO stated that it had raised more than 112,000 ETH valued at approximately $335 million at the time.
The DeFi protocol stated that there were more than 9,200 participants and its BIT tokens were now available for claiming and trading. The SushiChef posted a confirmation that the auction was complete and the tokens were ready for claiming for those that participated:
“The BIT-ETH auction finished successfully in just a few hours with a maximum commitment size, prompting finalization and allowing the tokens to be immediately claimable. ~ 80M$ in liquidity available on SushiSwap.”
BitDAO to boost DeFi
BitDAO claims to be one of the largest decentralized autonomous organizations in the world. It is supported by billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, Pantera, Dragonfly, and Spartan. In June, BitDAO raised $230 million in a funding round led by Thiel and various venture capital firms.
One of the world’s largest cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges, Bybit, is also a major initial proponent of BitDAO, pledging recurring contributions to the new DAO after it launched.
BitDAO aims to partner with projects through token swaps and co-development efforts. The mission is to provide support in the form of research and development, liquidity bootstrapping, and funding.
In an introductory blog post earlier this month, the DAO extolled the virtues of DeFi, stating:
“With no signup process, no middlemen approvals, no middleman execution, DeFi will fundamentally disrupt traditional finance and is likely to become a trillion dollar sector.”
It will be accumulating tokens from emerging DeFi projects for its treasury and governance systems. The newly launched BIT governance token will be a pivotal component of the DAO.
BIT token prices topped $2 immediately after launch on Aug 17, but have fallen to around $1.60 at the time of press according to CoinGecko.
Near miss for MISO
The entire auction process was saved from a potential multi-million dollar exploit by an eagle-eyed white hat going by the moniker ‘samczsum.’ The Paradigm security researcher discovered a flaw in the MISO auction smart contract that could have allowed an attacker to drain as much as 109,000 ETH.
SushiSwap CTO Joseph Delong was alerted to the vulnerability, giving the team time to formulate a rescue plan. The BitDAO team holding the token sale manually ended the auction by purchasing the remaining allocation and securing the funds. Once the contract was patched, the auction went ahead.