By
Steve Muchoki
May 8th, 2024
Crypto assets custodian Anchorage has introduced a new governance platform. Voting is based on ownership of the Maker token.
In what seems to be forward-thinking move, the premier cryptocurrency and digital asset custodian Anchorage backed by Visa has introduced a governance platform that has on-chain voting rights. The first cryptocurrency token to be supported in this regard is the Maker DAO’s Maker (MKR) token.
The platform referred to as Anchorage Governance will enable all the custodian’s clients which hold the MKR token to be able to vote at the Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD) vote which takes place on November 15th and at future events as well.
Sources indicate that the new platform took quite some time to build amidst rigorous alpha and beta testing. Based on the new development, several partners of Anchorage include a16z, Polychain and Paradigm. These partners will be able to vote on all mission-critical issues. These issues include matters such as stability fee, daily savings rate, portfolio collateral types among others.
It also appears that the guys at MakerDAO are also excited about the new development. Rune Christensen, founder of MakerDAO said:
“It’s important to the success of MakerDAO that Anchorage clients who hold MKR can vote easily and securely, and we look forward to increased asset holder participation as a result,”
The holders of the maker token haven’t been left out in the positive responses as well. Kevin Yedid-Botton, principal at ParaFi Capital, who are clients of Anchorage and also have stakes in Maker indicated:
“It is our duty to participate in governance decisions that affect the DeFi [decentralized finance] ecosystem and digital credit markets,”
That said, it is already obvious Anchorage clients have more than sufficient stakes in Maker to warrant the custodian developing a governance model. While numbers don’t lie when it comes to voting at any event, it may not be translated to effective decision making in any sense as the majority democratic principle trumps sound decisions either by fiat or by democracy itself.
Also, Anchorage isn’t the only digital asset custodian that has premier status. Popular cryptocurrency Coinbase also has Coinbase custody which operates using proxy smart contracts and assets moved from cold storage to hot storage for the execution of instructions. Anchorage operates quite differently.
Anchorage’s decision-making process occurs at different strata with approval strictly defined by internal processes and procedures. On a broad spectrum, the voting platform occurs in a manner that reflects the wishes of the organization rather than an individual client or group of clients.
The emergence of this new voting platform is indicative of a new trend in the blockchain industry globally. With voting systems in other blockchain systems such as EOS, Dash, Tezos and more, it is interesting to see Anchorage take on the voting model which hopefully will support other tokens soon.
Unveiled in January this year as a new kind of custodian, Anchorage has the backing of investors which cut across the payments, financial and fintech spheres. They include Visa, a16z and Blockchain Capital. They were part of the Series A funding round of the custodian in July which raised $40 million. The total investment amount raised by Anchorage so far is about $57 million.