Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Ben Schiller, CoinDesk’s Opinion and Features editor.
In this issue:
- DAO governance tool merger
- Ethereum Foundation drama
- Stablecoin USDh comes to Bitcoin
- $25 million grant program for DePIN
Network News
DAO GOVERNANCE PLATFORM ACQUIRES RIVAL: Agora, a blockchain governance startup, is set to acquire its competitor Boardroom. The company framed the acquisition as a strategic move to enhance governance within the broader Ethereum ecosystem, citing expectations of renewed growth in decentralized governance due to President Trump’s promise of regulatory clarity for the blockchain industry. “2025 is the year we make good governance the standard for all protocols in Ethereum,” Agora co-founder Yitong Zhang told CoinDesk. Agora was founded in 2022 by Zhang, Charlie Feng, and Kent Fenwick. The trio initially started working on governance tooling at Nouns DAO, one of the buzzier blockchain protocols to emerge from 2021’s DAO and NFT hype cycle. Agora was founded on the premise that token governance is central to the value of crypto protocols. It aims to provide user-friendly, open-source governance tools for DAOs like Uniswap and Optimism, which both currently use Agora to organize token holders and hold governance votes.Boardroom, which predated Agora and has similar goals, took a more horizontal approach to blockchain governance. Boardroom has gradually transitioned from an Agora-style DAO tooling software to a data feed — similar to a “Bloomberg” for crypto governance data. Agora declined to disclose how much it paid to acquire Boardroom. Boardroom’s employees have been offered roles at Agora, and Boardroom’s founder, Kevin Nielsen, will remain as an advisor. “There’s no plan to deprecate” Boardroom, according to Zhang. Rather, the Agora team will keep both platforms running and will work with users to determine how the tools might gradually be integrated. Read more. – Sam Kessler
ETHEREUM TURMOIL: Konstantin Lomashuk, the founder of the Lido staking protocol, has teased his intention to build a “Second Foundation” to advance Ethereum’
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Author: Benjamin Schiller
