Jeff Dorman (Arca) on asserting tokenholder rights (EP.129)

Jeff Dorman is the CIO at Arca, which is currently engaged in a fascinating standoff with Gnosis, a token project in which they have a position. Arca is asserting that Gnosis has delivered little value to tokenholders and has proposed that they perform a tender offer for GNO tokens with the assets held on their balance sheet (which exceed the capitalization of GNO). Covered in this episode:  The original purpose of Gnosis as laid out in the whitepaper Why Gnosis only sold 5% of their tokens in the initial sale How Gnosis's dutch auction backfired How the original objective to create a prediction market failed The history of Gnosis' non-core products and expenditures – and why they don't accrue value to GNO Under what circumstances pivoting is permissible – and when it isn't The existence of obligations towards tokenholders, even if implicit and unstated What should a well-codified arrangement between tokenholders and token issuers look like? Jeff's view of whether the utility theory of tokens is still valid The substance of Arca's proposal to Gnosis, and their preferred resolution Arca's proposal around a tender offer to buy back GNO at a fixed price with treasury assets Why large investors exerting themselves in governance benefits smaller shareholders How Arca's GNO position is similar to the ESG movement Arca's response to the rebuttal that tokenholders have no rights Arca's leverage to achieve a positive outcome – and willingness to litigate Whether explicit security tokens like Arcoin and INX will converge to tokens with equity-like characteristics