BarnBridge DAO votes to comply with SEC order

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) behind the decentralized protocol BarnBridge has conducted its voting on how to react to the United States Securities Exchange Commission’s (SEC) potential demands. 

The voting ended on Oct. 12 with a unanimous decision to comply with the SEC’s potential demands and pay fines if necessary. Tyler Ward and Troy Murray were nominated as the DAO’s special delegates for dealing with the regulator. At the same time, Douglas Park remains the DAO’s legal counsel and will sign the final version of the order on behalf of BarnBridge. Voters have also approved the DAO’s treasury to “sell all tokens that it is permitted to sell” if needed.

No information is available on any specific order the SEC has sent to BarnBridge. The regulator’s investigation into the DAO began in June 2023. BarnBridge immediately paused all its work and closed its liquidity pools. Addressing the members, Ward provided no details for the SEC’s investigation due to its “non-public nature.”

Related: Vitalik Buterin voices concerns over DAOs approving ETH staking pool operators

The price of BarnBridge’s native token, BOND, has been gradually falling since its last peak on July 25, when it reached $21.69. At the time of publication, it stands at $1.67, according to CoinGecko. It reached its all-time high of $185.7 in October 2020.

In 2021, BarnBridge announced its “SMART Exposure” application, enabling users to passively maintain a particular weighting between the assets in a specific ERC-20 token pair through automatic rebalancing.

In November 2022, the SEC instituted administrative proceedings against the first legally recognized DAO in the U.S., the American CryptoFed DAO. According to the SEC, the Form S-1 registration statement filed by American CryptoFed lacked vital information, such as audited financial statements and details about its business and management.

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