LexDAO February 2022 Recap
ETHDenver
It was so great to finally meet some of our fellow LexDAO members in person!
For those of you who don’t know, ETHDenver is a 9 day event filled with panels, parties, and everything in-between. This year, some LexDAO members took center stage discussing the legal implications of web3.
LexDAO members also had the opportunity to gather at a Web3 Legal Happy Hour organized by LexDAO member Kyle Westaway, and at a fun group dinner organized by Geoff Costeloe. Thanks to those who contributed to an awesome weekend together!
Kali Launch
KALI has launched and is now live! KALI allows you to deploy a DAO with preset or customized specifications on Ethereum, Polygon, or Arbitrum, and has already been a big hit. KALI was designed for optimization, using less gas fees than other platforms, and aims to deploy flexible legal documents for non-profits and investment clubs. The Real-World-Asset working group has jumped onto the prototype with plans to map its dematerialization legal workflow onto the document suite and entity framework.
There are already plenty of examples showing how quick, easy, and needed KALI is:
theattorney.eth has already launched FishDAO using only his cell phone and a Colorado IPA, Lion917.eth has created and and launched his own social coin, and Ross has posted an awesome video of him deploying a DAO in seconds using KALI.
LexDAOism
It’s been a slower month for LexDAOism, LexDAO’s blog featuring some leading analysis of the most pressing legal issues in legal engineering and web3–probably because everyone was hanging out at ETHDenver. However, this didn’t stop Joshua Durham from publishing his article on protecting NFT property rights. In his article, Joshua lays out the IP issues facing some of today’s biggest NFT projects and is a must read with anybody with money or clients in the NFT space.
Other members have posted elsewhere on technology and future of law (medium).
Constitutional Reboot
After being the first trustless, Unincorporated Non-Profit Association (TUNA) based on code deference to be created in Wyoming, LexDAO is revisiting its constitution in light of the DAO amendments and digital asset legislation. This will bring closer alignment between the operating practices and what has been written with on-going efforts to update the LexDAO Handbook of bylaws and smart contracts that keep the governance open, transparent and participatory.
Get involved!
LexDAO is always looking for new members! If you are interested in the work we are doing:
Check out our discord and ask some questions (feel free to DM our Assistant Operator @kate.g with any onboarding questions).
Join our weekly governance calls on Wednesday at 12pm EST (in Discord)!
When you are ready to join, fill out this form and check out this post for all the information you need to apply.
Study Group (Informal)
For members looking to earn their membership, a proposal has been floated for an informal study group to help each other over the coding aspects (for law students) and legal lingo for hard-core developers. Contact @kate.g if interested.
Looking for New Blood to revitalize Dispute Resolution
@Jordan_t is looking for other LexDAO members to give the onchain dispute resolution working group some tender-loving care. Of particular interest was what portions of the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce Digital Dispute Resolution Rules can be useful for LexDAO’s existing binding arbitration process. This returns to the trilemma of justice in picking one of fast, fair or friendly (to parties). Join #dr-discussion to debate, as well as an open call for web3 visual coders to design 3D legal arenas in the Atlantis or CryptoVoxel metaverse.
Application for Cardano Grant (3rd March 11 am UTC)
Cardano has issued guidelines to its Round8 ecosystem fund with up to $300k (native token) equivalent available for the challenge of “defend[ing] … from attacks by authoritarian governments and compromising legislation and unfair tax policies”. Building on LexDAO’s Senate Banking Committee submission and hackathon work in advocating for industry co-regulation, @drllau has proposed to expand the use of github to discuss public policy, build up a library of educational resources, and support trade associations / overseas stakeholders aligned with its mission to better serve citizens through equitable considerations of law. For those not familiar with Cardano, it aims to be a financial settlement platform with the largest number of smart contract developers. Contact drllau#2628 on our discord for more information.
SEC Public Commentary
There will be a 30 day period for public feedback on the SEC Alternative Trading System (ATS) upon formal announcement in the Federal Register. This should raise concerns for all securities lawyers since it expands the scope of rule-making (overreach?). In particular the subtle change to the definition of an "exchange" by replacing the phrase "uses established, nondiscretionary methods [of order matching]" with "makes available established, nondiscretionary methods" apparently covers DeFi protocols, communications channels and interest signaling. This means that hands-off price discovery (eg oracles or using EtherScan) could potentially be captured in the rules rather than traditional bounds of fostering fair/efficient order settlement. Contact drllau#2628 on our discord for more information.
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