Amidst the ongoing controversy surrounding cryptocurrency media outlet Bankless and its associated decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), BanklessDAO, the co-founders of Bankless, David Hoffman and Ryan Sean Adams, have proposed a separation of the brand from the DAO.
This decision follows community criticism of BanklessDAO’s application for a grant from Arbitrum, a layer-2 scaling project for the Ethereum blockchain, which requested 1.82 million Arbitrum (ARB) tokens, valued at approximately $1.8 million at the time.
Hoffman and Adams announced their intention to submit a governance proposal to BanklessDAO, aiming to decouple the two entities.
As part of this proposal, they also plan to burn all of their BanklessDAO (BANK) tokens.
The key concern expressed by the community was that BanklessDAO might not have the capacity to make such significant proposals without relying on the reputation of the Bankless brand, which they did not create and should not benefit from, according to Hoffman.
The BanklessDAO community swiftly criticized the grant proposal, emphasizing the lack of detailed information about how the funds would be utilized for content creation.
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In response, BanklessDAO pledged to revise the proposal by reducing the one-year grant to three months and providing clear key performance indicators and milestones.
The dispute escalated on social media, with some commentators accusing Bankless founders of “legitimacy grifting” by claiming that BanklessDAO was entirely distinct from Bankless.
Others criticized them for promoting projects like Nexo and questioned their authenticity.
In response to the criticism, Adams defended the practice of creators running ads, arguing that labeling them as grifters was an attempt to consume content without compensation.
He emphasized that paid subscribers have always supported the mission of Bankless.
Founded in 2019, Bankless is a crypto media company that advocates for the adoption and awareness of bankless monetary systems.
In May 2021, they launched Bankless DAO, a decentralized community dedicated to coordinating and promoting bankless media, and introduced the BANK token.
In April 2023, Bankless founders revealed their plans to establish a $35 million venture capital fund for investments in early-stage Web3 companies.
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