AC and others initiate a new YFI proposal: to fund the DeFi legal advocacy organization LeXpunK_DAO with $1 million

Author: Gong Quanyu

Recently, Andre Cronje and several others initiated a new proposal for Yearn Finance YIP-63 on the DeFi governance platform Snapshot, suggesting to contribute $1 million to the new DeFi legal advocacy organization LeXpunKDAO, with a similar contribution expected from Curve. At the same time, LeXpunKDAO plans to airdrop 5% of the current supply of its non-transferable reputation token L3X to YFI holders who support the proposal.
It is understood that LeXpunKDAO is dedicated to legal advocacy for Yearn and other builder-centric DeFi communities, managed by builders from the contributing community (including Yearn) and practicing lawyers from the LeXpunK Army, implemented through Moloch DAO, Gnosis multisig, or other DAOs. According to the proposal, the organization primarily addresses recent DeFi regulatory issues, as U.S. regulatory officials have repeatedly indicated the need to bring certain DeFi projects or tokens under strict regulatory scrutiny. The organization aims to protect the open, transparent, and decentralized values of DeFi through legal advocacy work. Specifically, LeXpunKDAO's work combines long-term strategic advocacy campaigns with rapid-response "guerrilla tactics." On one hand, it engages in long-term constructive activities, such as launching milestone position papers, providing legal defense for DeFi developers against regulatory lawsuits, and proposing "safe harbor" legislation to legitimize key aspects of DeFi;
On the other hand, it tailors rapid response plans for real-time incident responses, such as coordinating with law enforcement or CEX to help stop or recover funds when a DeFi protocol is hacked, or assisting builders from the contributing community in formulating strategies and organizing legal teams to protect them when they receive informal SEC investigations.
Previously, the DeFi education fund funded by Uniswap engaged in similar work, and this proposal specifically discusses how LeXpunK_DAO differs from other legal advocacy organizations.
"Members and staff of existing advocacy organizations such as Blockchain Association, Coin Center, and DeFi education fund overlap with traditional crypto businesses closely related to Silicon Valley venture capital funds and Coinbase. Many teams directly represented by these organizations pursue dual-token/equity strategies, meaning they also seek to add value for their shareholders through KYC-controlled and auditable protocol forks that cater to institutions and fintech," the proposal states.
In the view of the proposal's initiators, fully decentralized projects like Yearn differ from company-operated projects like Uniswap and require different legal advocacy strategies to accomplish relevant work.
"Builder-centric, bottom-up communities like Yearn, Curve, and SushiSwap have different cultural spirits and stories. We are a spontaneous, crypto builder community with no TradFi backup plan, valuing openness and creativity above all," the proposal states. "Therefore, we should have our unique voice in the ever-changing regulatory environment, and by doing so, we may be able to propose or emphasize legal arguments that other types of projects do not possess."
Currently, the proposal has received 338 YFI votes in support on Snapshot, with a support rate of 100%, indicating that it is likely to pass. The voting for the proposal will officially end on August 11.