DAOs: Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place

DAOs, especially in Defi, are stuck between a rock and a hard place:

On the one hand, they need to decentralize early to avoid regulation.

On the other, they still need to innovate towards PMF, make good decisions, and develop a sustainable business model.

So wat do? pic.twitter.com/FDj1rAb2IG

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

I have two core beliefs on this subject:

First, making good financial decisions is the single biggest low-hanging fruit today.

>100k people read my article https://t.co/11auhr04Cu, but hardly anyone has managed to implement it consistently.

That how I realized: DAOs need help.

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

DAOs need help in allocating budgets,

they need help in managing their assets and liabilities,

they need help with incentive programs,

and they need helping making basic financial statements (!!)

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

Especially having great financial statements should be table stakes in any protocol because they are so important and useful -- for decision-making, accountability, and transparency.

In practice, many protocols still don't have any today.

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

Driving a DAO without financial statements is like flying a plane with your eyes closed.

We make proposals without a clear idea where we are today, or where we hope a proposal is going to take us.

And then we lack the most basic feedback loops for what's working and what isn't.

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

Further, investors in DAOs today have *less* transparency and protection than they get in Tradfi.

This is mindblowing to me because we could be 10x better!

DAOs can report live what traditional businesses do at most once per quarter, with everything verifiable on-chain. pic.twitter.com/GfuvSuKu2x

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

My second core belief is that DAOs should push complexity to the edges.

Core functions should be outsourced to external service providers, who can be more lean and centralized than the core DAO, but can be swapped out at any time.

That's effective decentralization.

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

If you put these two together, you get a new solution:

A CFO-as-a-service for DAOs who supports them as a powerful and reliable partner. pic.twitter.com/OdsYU5mDP0

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

For the last 1-2 years, I have been on the lookout for a team that shares my values and has the same vision of creating a CFO-as-a-service that empowers DAOs above their peers and helps Defi go mainstream.

I found this team in @SteakFi.https://t.co/1ArwlsD9w1

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

Today, I'm exited to announce that I am joining @SteakFi as strategic advisor and board member.

Together, we will bring financial intelligence and better decision making to Defi.

To build a financial system that is neutral, transparent, and open to everyone.

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

I first met the team that would later become @SteakFi when I joined @MakerDAO as a delegate.

My plan was to "make good treasury management the foundation of all decision-making".

Their "strategic finance" CU had the same goal, so we bonded immediately.https://t.co/FyVln8gD0a

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

In the last two years, SF/Steakhouse grew RWAs in Maker from ~$2m in collateral to almost $2b.

RWAs now produce 80% of Maker's protocol revenue, or $75m annually.

This not just created massive value for Maker, it also reduced DAI's reliance on USDC from 85% to 36%.

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

Also in Maker, they created the most comprehensive protocol financial report to date, established a new gold standard for protocol reporting.https://t.co/Yga7Kc2s0p pic.twitter.com/prQRgwxgGV

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

Later, Steakhouse became the Finance partner for @LidoFinance, where they improved the transparency and efficiency on liquidity incentives.

Lido has since reduced incentives from >$100m to less than $10m p.a., and started using stETH instead of LDO.https://t.co/IRPcTJCqKn

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

Finally, they developed the first protocol financial statement for @ensdomains , empowering the ENS DAO to make better decisions in the future and provide greater transparency to ENS holders.https://t.co/YDOUFyL3Xa pic.twitter.com/1VJ6iO4Tbg

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023

If you want to be part of this journey and team that drives real impact in every protocol they touch, you should check out their hiring page today.

They currently look for a Lead Financial Analyst.https://t.co/ViIA6Uit5Q pic.twitter.com/G2cQl9S5Xc

— Hasu⚡️🤖 (@hasufl) June 7, 2023