Table of Contents:

· Proposal for funding exceeding $1.8 million causes controversy for BanklessDAO

· Two Bankless co-founders publish clarifying articles in succession

· Bankless co-founders jokingly refer to themselves as "UdiDAO"

November 25th, Ryan Sean Adams, co-founder of the well-known cryptocurrency media Bankless, clarified on social media that Bankless and BanklessDAO are not related. BanklessDAO is a completely independent entity from Bankless, and neither Ryan Sean Adams nor David Hoffman, another co-founder of Bankless, have received any economic benefits from BanklessDAO or participated in its governance voting.

Behind this clarification event is a governance proposal released by BanklessDAO, which has sparked widespread discussion in the community.

Proposal for funding over $1.8 million sparks controversy at BanklessDAO

The source of the incident that caused two co-founders of Bankless to issue consecutive statements to clarify is a proposal submitted by BanklessDAO to Arbitrum on November 25th, which can be found in this link, and the proposal can be found in this link.

In this proposal, BanklessDAO is applying for a grant of 1.82 million ARB (approximately $1.87 million USD at current ARB prices) from Arbitrum to carry out a 12-month long campaign. The campaign will focus on three core audiences: developers, DeFi enthusiasts, and gamers.

In the public announcement released by BanklessDAO, they expressed their hope that this proposal will guide users from awareness to professionalism regarding Arbitrum, attract people through multilingual content, attract learners through education, and encourage newcomers and OGs to join the Arbitrum community. Additionally, they aim to further promote the mass education of Web3 to enhance global access to Arbitrum. The announcement includes a link to a tweet, which is not translated and is preserved as is. HTML tags such as

, , , and

are not translated and are preserved as is.

The proposal also details the cost of each activity, with the highest cost being the "Entry Training through Guild and 'Operation Method' Course", which costs 783,750 ARB.

However, this proposal has caused a lot of controversy within the community. Some have pointed out that it would be better to take a more experimental approach by starting with a quarterly trial period instead of launching a full-year activity directly. There are also community members who have expressed concern that if this proposal is passed, it would encourage competitors to submit a large number of expensive proposals: "The correct format is to conduct a needs assessment survey, solicit suggestions, and evaluate service providers' proposals. By skipping the first two steps, you will encourage competitors to submit their own proposals, which will consume all of our time trying to keep up with them."

Ryan also had to make a clarification publicly because he felt the "discomfort people felt about the marketing proposal sent by banklessDAO to Arbitrum, which led to associations with Bankless." He pointed out that he also "only learned about this Arbitrum proposal today."

Regarding this proposal, Ryan has his own opinion. He thinks "the whole thing is stupid": "Assuming the cost per thousand impressions is 60 (high), I hope to get 30 million impressions at 1.8 million impressions. I haven't seen the complete proposal yet, but it's hard for me to imagine getting close to these numbers. When I receive proposals from suppliers with strange prices, I will ask them to prove the reasonableness of the proposal, ask for discounts, or refuse."

According to official data, BanklessDAO currently has about 6,000 contributors since its establishment in May 2021. Over 4,000 people have joined web3 by participating in the community through DAO. At the same time, BanklessDAO also serves as an incubator for new projects.

Bankless Two Co-founders Clarify in Successive Articles

Perhaps it is precisely because of inquiries from multiple community members and social media users that Ryan and David have successively posted updates to clarify their relationship with BanklessDAO.

In Ryan's lengthy article, first of all, he stated that BanklessDAO is a completely independent entity from Bankless. This is a true community DAO, not operated or controlled by David, himself, or anyone from Bankless.

Secondly, Ryan's words also reveal dissatisfaction with the X platform (formerly Twitter): "It's unfortunate to see Bankless being dragged down again by the nihilistic corner of this application." "There are many people on this application who know the truth, but they maliciously smear Bankless with false information. This is really bad and consumes my energy."

Finally, Ryan and David consider Bankless as a "headless" brand and express their views on BanklessDAO. They believe that the personnel, products, and services of BanklessDAO are all excellent, and they are proud of the people they have met in BanklessDAO: "This is a great community, sincere and focused. If there is any confusion during proposal presentations, I am confident they will take measures to correct the mistakes."

Meanwhile, another co-founder David added that Bankless did create BanklessDAO, but in fact "we did not provide a position for them (BanklessDAO)" and Bankless does not guide the direction of BanklessDAO or supervise their efforts.

He said that BanklessDAO has always had the autonomy to guide and manage Bankless, which has always been the focus: "We provide an opportunity for those who want to contribute to the movement to exert their own strength without being watched by me or Ryan."

Bankless co-founder jokingly referred to as "renamed UdiDAO"

It is worth noting that, according to BlockBeats observation, there is a widespread rumor on social media that BanklessDAO will be renamed UdiDAO. However, in fact, this is just a joke created by Taproot Wizards co-founder Udi Wertheimer (@udiWertheimer) and Ryan.

Under Ryan's lengthy post, Udi humorously commented, "Why don't you just rename the DAO?" Ryan responded with humor, "Sure, how about we rename it Udi DAO?"

Udi later commented, "How can you talk about renaming when you don't even control BanklessDAO?" At the same time, perhaps in response to the many misunderstandings caused by this comment, Udi clarified that the renaming of BanklessDAO to "UdiDAO" was just a joke: "To be honest, the reaction to this response was shocking, as if it was a real trap. Ryan was just joking, and I was joking too. He didn't really rename the DAO to UdiDAO, did you know that?"

However, in fact, in response to the potential confusion caused by the similarity in names between BanklessDAO and Bankless, Ryan has stated on social media that he will submit a governance proposal to BanklessDAO next week and "plans to destroy all BANK tokens" based on the proposal to avoid further misunderstandings and associations.

Behind this incident, will BanklessDAO officially change its name? Will there be new changes in the proposal? BlockBeats will continue to pay attention.

Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:

Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia