Plot Twist: Tornado Cash Hijacker’s Redemption Arc
The Tally Newsletter, Issue 99
Welcome back to the Tally Newsletter, your weekly source for DAO governance insights. I'm coolhorsegirl and I’m so excited to be here. 🟣
This week, prepare for a storyline that could rival any blockbuster movie: a notorious digital pirate, a hijacked governance, a tense standoff, and an unexpected twist that'll leave you gobsmacked. Decentralized governance never fails to entertain.
We’re also talking proposals from some big dogs in governance—Gitcoin, Hop, and Nouns, all the way from a few run-of-the-mill budget requests to a significant visual design update. Let’s get into it 👇
🤿 Deep Dive: Plot Twist: Tornado Cash Hijacker’s Redemption Arc
It seems our digital pirate who hijacked Tornado Cash governance has had a surprising—to say the least—change of heart. After passing a sneaky proposal, he’s offered up a reversal of sorts. Brace yourself for the latest scoop in yet another episode of decentralized governance drama.
So, just to jog your memory, on May 21st, this rascal seized control over Tornado Cash's governance with a wily proposal, leaving them in a position to do some serious damage. The hacker took control of 1.2M votes, outgunning the 700k legit votes. Just like that, Tornado Cash governance was put on mute (ouch!). But as the storm was raging, our man on the inside, Mr. Tornadosaurus Hex (Hex, for short), sprang into action, pushing for a proposal requesting folks to withdraw all funds locked in governance.
Things were looking pretty grim, with Hex uncertain whether his heroic efforts could stand up to the attacker's stranglehold on the governance. But lo and behold, our exploiter had a change of heart (cue the “awwwws”) and reached out with a new proposal, suggesting they might actually hand back the reins of control.
Hex relayed this news, cautioning the community to play along since, let's face it, they didn't have much of a choice. There were mixed feelings about this sudden change - hope, suspicion, and speculation that it's a scheme to boost the TORN token's price before bowing out. Regardless, the silver lining in this whole kerfuffle is that the overall hacks in the crypto world have seen a decline in Q1 2023.
Anyway, the DAO voted overwhelmingly (literally 0 against) to pass the attacker’s proposal. After a heavy analysis of the safety of the proposal (fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me), it was executed on May 28th. Governance was successfully returned to the protocol. Phew!
Tornado Cash got LUCKY. Let this be a wake-up call to all of us governerds: vet those proposal descriptions and logic like your life (or at least your funds) depend on it! In the unpredictable world of decentralized governance, never get complacent. After all, 2022 was a rollercoaster of hacks following a quiet spell. Stay safe, stay vigilant, and as always, keep your eyes on those governance proposals!
⌛️ On-chain Proposals
On-chain DAOs are decentralized autonomous organizations that operate entirely on the blockchain, using smart contracts and other blockchain-based technologies for its operations and decision-making processes. Tally believes that true DAOs operate on-chain.
💚 Gitcoin
Summary: This season, Gitcoin Allo is focused on finding product-market fit for web3 grants programs, by facilitating their funding via Grants Stack and enabling new software development on the Allo protocol. Asking for 1.2M GTC.
Voting ends: June 2nd
[GCP-008] S18 Discord Management
Summary: As the DAOops workstream, previously responsible for funding Discord management, concludes operations at the end of Season 17, future funding will be sought through the GCP process. Requesting $23,400 for the upcoming 13-week season, with no severance should the service be discontinued.
Voting ends: June 1st
[S18] Gitcoin Passport Budget (repost)
Summary: The Passport workstream this season aims to amplify its impact by increasing Passport's adoption via on-chain mechanisms, UX enhancements, and DevRel initiatives, and by conducting strategic revenue experiments to ensure sustainable value capture. Requesting ~390k GTC.
Voting ends: June 1st
🐰 Hop DAO
Summary: Authereum Labs and Lito have agreed to part ways, leading to some necessary adjustments in their HOP token distribution. To ensure fairness, the Hop DAO is orchestrating the return of unvested tokens from Lito, while still respecting the terms of any tokens already vested. Passed on Snapshot.
Voting ends: June 2nd
🟡 NounsDAO
Introducing Noun Computers - An Ethereum Node Prototype
Summary: $250k to fund the development of credit card-sized computers that would be ideal for Ethereum staking. This would be part of Nouns’s increased focus on public goods. The prototype is cute, designed from scratch, and would allow for easy individual staking, another Nouns focus.
Voting ends: June 4th
Summary: Did you know Nouns doesn’t have a display font? This proposal asks for 18 ETH to create one, starting from literal scratch. Goal is to be fun, recognizable, and of course, Nounish. Check out the proposal—the artist has some drafts ready to view.
Voting ends: June 5th
📝 10 Things To Read or Listen To
📄 “Don't overload Ethereum's consensus” by Vitalik Buterin
📄 “Building Sybil Resistance using Cost of Forgery” by Kyle Weiss
📄 “Governance of Superintelligence” by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and Ilya Sutskever of OpenAI
📄 ”Announcing the DAO Anthology” by Samantha Marin
🧵 “The importance of translation in the world of Web3 and DAOs” by Bankless Translators
🧵 “Aave Robot’s plans for DAOs” by Dan Wu
🎧 “Building a Borderless Web3 Culture w/ Feems” on Rehash
🎧 “Token bound accounts + ERC-6551 w/ Benny Giang” on On the Other Side
🎧 “Summoning Ether’s Phoenix with Karl Floersch” on the GreenPill
🎧 “Rune Christensen - The MakerDAO Endgame Plan” on I Pledge Allegiance
💫 DAO Talk: patrick @ the arbitrum foundation || DT interview #39
🤭 Meme of the Week
What a week! Delegation Week is over - 10 Spaces in 5 days! We dived deep into DAOs like Arbitrum, Hop DAO, Pool Together, ENS, and Gitcoin, talked about the responsibilities of the token holder, and caught up with university delegate groups. Catch up with all of our Spaces here.
The DAO Research Collective is collecting research for their State of DAO Delegation Report. Fill out the survey here for a USDC reward (it takes about 3 minutes).
~ coolhorsegirl 🐴
p.s.- Monkey Mountain, ‘nuff said.
