Jack Kubinec

<div id="highlights-block_633b45b1a1a3c" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Cumberland and GoldenTree cast a combined 8.1 million of 13 million votes</li>
 <li>11 million of 13 million total votes were cast by just five wallets</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sushi-dao-holds-election-for-chief-executive/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The SushiSwap DAO hoped to set a new precedent</a> for transparency and crypto governance by holding a first-of-its-kind election for its chief executive, known as the decentralized protocol’s “head chef.”  



But <a href="https://snapshot.org/#/sushigov.eth/proposal/bafkreifkvrkobnbzy6j7th244kcvbryg2qiq4digepljyaqgnnnlwdvyza" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">voter turnout</a> was collectively low, giving quite the runway to five whales — including the kingmakers GoldenTree and Cumberland — leading to what some SushiSwap community members have dubbed a lopsided result, carried out in the very early days of governance and activism in the Web3 world. 



While activism has had an established, and SEC-regulated, framework in equities for decades, corresponding Web3 governance proposals have been plagued by low voter turnout and dominated by deep-pocketed token owners.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Ultimately, the two venture firms cast the deciding votes. In fact, if every other voter opposed their pick, the financiers still would have come out on top, considering just 391 of some 18,000 eligible Sushi wallets cast a virtual ballot. Of 13 million votes — one per token — 11 million came from the five big-money wallets.



Jared Grey, former CEO of DeFi platform Eons Finance, carried the election with 83%, though Andy Forman and Kenneth Hurley, who finished second and third, respectively, each garnered more votes from unique wallets.&nbsp;



Grey received support from key whales. Ten million of his 11 million votes came from four anonymous whale wallets.&nbsp;



The largest whale wallets in the election, which cast four million votes apiece, belonged to venture capital firms <a href="https://www.goldentree.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">GoldenTree</a> and <a href="https://cumberland.io/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Cumberland</a>, Grey and Hurley told Blockworks.&nbsp;



Representatives from the prominent traditional finance asset managers approached Grey and other candidates after one of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL03oyFX32uZfNpcT8_EYubJcoijIut-S-" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sushi’s AMA calls</a>, Grey told Blockworks. Hurley said the two firms pressured Sushi insiders to back Grey during a private meeting ahead of the election.



Sushi DAO members were disheartened by the election’s dominance by whales.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“I guess DeFi is no different than [TradFi], except that this has the veneer of choice,” a DAO member <a href="https://discord.com/channels/748031363935895552/1009910713017438228/1026027197250687036" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote on Discord</a> after the election. </blockquote>



Venture capital backing aside, the Sushi community has <a href="https://discord.com/channels/748031363935895552/1009910713017438228/1026510556057829416" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">generally positive feelings</a> about Grey. For his part, Grey is unconcerned about venture capital participation in the election.



“I got the impression from those funds that I spoke with that ended up voting for me, that they’re very much in alignment with what people want,” Grey said.



SushiSwap, once <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20201125082236/https://defillama.com/home" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">among the largest</a> DeFi protocols on the market, has been roiled in <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/update-cto-resigns-as-sushiswap-struggles-arca-submits-restructuring-proposal/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">leadership controversy</a> for much of the past two years, sliding to 19th in total value locked (TVL) among DeFi protocols, <a href="https://defillama.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">per DeFiLlama</a>. Head chef candidates were under pressure to roll out detailed plans for how to restore Sushi to the upper echelons of DeFi.



In an interview with Blockworks ahead of the election, Grey said he hoped to “do a forensic style audit on [Sushi’s] treasury” and make the protocol “operationally lean.”



Hurley was less optimistic on venture capital’s alignment.



“When I talked with the one VC firm, he said, ‘Oh, well we all have the same goals in mind, and that’s to get the Sushi price up,’” Hurley said. “That’s not necessarily my goal. I want to move the crypto space forward.”



Grey stressed that DAO governance is a work in progress, considering DeFi is in its infancy and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/bipartisan-stablecoin-regulation-has-a-slim-chance-of-passing-this-year/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">regulation</a> remains opaque. Sushi is currently weighing the <a href="https://forum.sushi.com/t/sushi-meiji-restoration/10969" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Meiji proposal</a>, aimed, in part, to reduce the voting power of whales. In the meantime, Grey still sees the election as a step up from executives being nominated behind closed doors.



“At the end of the day, [the election is] one of the more fair ways to get executive leadership in these roles,” Grey said. “I’d like to see some version of this process get adopted by more DAOs, so we can improve on it.”



Cumberland and GoldenTree did not respond to requests for comment.



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SushiSwap ‘Head Chef’ Election Settled by GoldenTree, Cumberland

Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_621e941905ff3" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Offerings will allow traders to hedge market-moving events with greater precision, according to CME Group’s global head of equity and foreign exchange products</li>
 <li>CME Group began offering micro bitcoin and micro ether futures contracts last year</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Derivatives exchange CME Group is set to roll out options on micro bitcoin and ether futures this month in a move to give more traders exposure to such instruments with nominal capital.



The options contracts, set to launch March 28, will be one-tenth the size of their underlying tokens. CME introduced bitcoin futures contracts, sized at five bitcoin, in 2020.



Futures require the buyer to purchase an asset at a certain date, while options give an investor the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an asset before the contract expires.



CME Group began offering bitcoin futures contracts in 2017 and <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/cme-group-to-launch-cash-settled-micro-bitcoin-futures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">launched</a> cash-settled micro bitcoin futures contracts worth one-tenth of one bitcoin last year. The derivatives marketplace <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/cme-group-plots-launch-of-micro-ether-futures/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">moved in November</a> to add micro ether futures as liquidity in ether futures grew steadily with investors.&nbsp;



About 5.2 million micro bitcoin and micro ether futures contracts have changed hands in less than a year, according to Tim McCourt, CME Group’s global head of equity and foreign exchange products.



“Building on the strength and liquidity of the underlying contracts, our micro-sized options will enable traders of all sizes to efficiently hedge market-moving events with greater precision and flexibility or fine-tune their cryptocurrency market exposure,” McCourt told Blockworks in an email.



As traders favor short-dated options to manage risk, according to McCourt, the launch will feature Monday, Wednesday and Friday weekly expiries for micro crypto options.



Executives at Genesis Global Trading, Cumberland and Akuna Digital Assets said their firms will provide liquidity.



&#8220;We believe that options on these contracts will allow existing market participants greater flexibility when seeking cost-efficient exposure as well as opening the market to new participants who prefer the more granular sizing,&#8221; Akuna CEO John Harris said in a statement.



The launch comes after CME Group launched two new reference rates for bitcoin and ether Monday that provide a daily reference rate of the US dollar price of the two digital assets, published at 4 pm ET.



“We’re continually talking with and listening to clients and market participants about new ways to help them manage cryptocurrency risk,” McCourt said, declining to share specific future crypto products the company has in the works.



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