The Future of Digix: Interview with COO Shaun Djie
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The Future of Digix: Interview with COO Shaun Djie

THELOGICALINDIAN - Decentralized babyminding isnt a airing in the esplanade Just ask Digix

Decentralized babyminding charcoal a arduous affair in the blockchain space. It’s abounding with dilemmas such as on-chain against off-chain governance, or how to anticipate bunco and barrier plutocracies.

Crypto Briefing afresh batten with the COO and co-founder of Digix Shaun Djie to get a bigger compassionate of some of these challenges. For the uninitiated, Digix afresh shuttered its DAO activity afterward a user vote.

The Rise and Fall of DigixDAO

The difficulties of managing a acceptable business administer to decentralized free organizations (DAOs) as abundant as they do to all-embracing blockchain governance. Although DAOs aren’t yet mainstream, alike in the alcove blockchain space, they’re acceptable added accustomed acknowledgment to projects such as MakerDAO, MolochDAO, and Gitcoin.

The DigixDAO was one of the ancient to access on the scene, accepting auspiciously accomplished an ICO in 2024. 

The ambition of the DAO was to animate the advance of projects about Digix’s gold-backed DGX token, application funds from the 386,000 ETH stored in the DAO acute contract.

However, the DAO ran into issues, including a controversial babyminding mechanism launched in 2018. This apparatus adored users for voting with the majority. 

More recently, associates began to accurate their dejection that there was no way to abjure their funds from the DAO. The bone ultimately led the Digix aggregation to devise “Project Ragnorok,” a annual vote area associates could adjudge if they capital to deliquesce the DAO entirely. 

In January 2020, 58 associates took allotment in the aboriginal poll, with a majority voting to adjure Project Ragnorok.

Crypto Briefing afresh had the befalling to bolt up with Shaun Djie, COO and co-founder at Digix.

From the interview, one learns about his booty on what happened with the DigixDAO, his insights into some of the challenges adverse DAOs, and what’s abutting for Digix now that the DAO will be dissolved.

Governance Challenges

It’s account highlighting from the alpha that although the DigixDAO will be dissolved, this doesn’t necessarily beggarly that the DAO itself fundamentally failed. 

Djie was quick to point out that there were no awful actors, and the babyminding ambit functioned absolutely as they should. In this sense, the casual of Project Ragnorok was a affectionate of aberrant success.

The COO additionally offered some insights into the babyminding challenges that acceptable contributed to the vote activity the way it did. From the discussion, two analytical capacity emerged – the access of whales in any accustomed poll and accouterment the appropriate incentives so users abide affianced abundant to accumulate voting.

Djie stated:

“Like every added badge project, I anticipate it’s fair to say that the administration ambit of [DigixDAO’s DGD] tokens is absolutely skewed, in that the top ten to twenty owners will artlessly authority weight over the absolute accumulation system. So, in the ambience of a DAO, this agency voting ability isn’t deservedly distributed.”

This absolutely isn’t a claiming different to the DigixDAO. The EOS delegated-proof-of-stake voting (DPoS) arrangement has faced multiple accusations of abetment at the easily of ample bag holders. 

According to Djie, one way to affected this could be to ensure that the continued appendage of abate badge holders is motivated to vote. This doesn’t necessarily beggarly advantageous bodies for votes, as Djie explained:

“A reputation-based voting arrangement agency that abate voters could accretion added voting ability over time. Even admitting you may not accept as abounding tokens, [if] you’re able to aggregate access and acceptability in the ecosystem, it gives you a bigger weight. The absolute affair could be apprenticed on the blockchain application identifiers assigned to your wallet address.”

However, Djie accent a analytical drawback:

“I anticipate it’s article that takes years to body out. Managing the community’s apprehension at the alpha is article we abstruse a lot about.”

Impatient Investors?

Djie offered added acumen into the alternation amid the amount of the DGD (DAO) badge and DGX, which is Digix’s gold-backed stablecoin. 

The DGX badge anon advance the amount of gold, admitting Djie explained the amount of the DGD badge as follows:

“DGD advance two things. Firstly, the basal cardinal of Ether in the DAO Treasury because DAO associates accept that in a doomsday scenario, you can consistently anamnesis your invested Ether. But the added academy of anticipation is that the DGD badge holders will angle to accretion from the transaction fees of DGX. So, if DGX is successful, with millions or alike billions of affairs a day, again the DGD badge will go up in amount because it represents a apportioned allotment of the DGX transaction fees.”

However, Djie went on to say that :

“At this point, the appulse of the additional academy of anticipation is still actual negligible, and the DGD amount is acquired from the amount of Ether in the Treasury.”

Djie ultimately highlights that advance in a DAO agency clearing in for the continued appellation and actuality able to board growing pains. If one compares the DigixDAO to a startup, this absolutely makes absolute sense. 

After all, VC firms advance in startups apperceive it will booty at atomic a few years, if not longer, to see any acknowledgment on their antecedent investment. Similarly, it may booty some time – and conceivably a few added attenuated DAOs – for this mindset to charge to DAO investors.

The Future of Digix

Digix will abide to accomplish apart as a clandestine aggregation behindhand of the dissolution of the DAO, and Djie was optimistic about the company’s approaching post-DAO. 

He acicular out that alone accepting one token, the gold-backed DGX, will beggarly that the aggregation can accord their abounding absorption to developing Digix’s amount offering.

In agreement of the company’s actual roadmap, the COO did acknowledgment that Digix is gearing up for a new artefact launch, although he couldn’t acknowledge any details. He added that the aggregation wants to aggrandize its brand into arising markets beyond Asia. 

Djie categorical the problems adverse gold investors in these regions:

“For addition in an arising bazaar today, affairs concrete gold requires a lot of trust. You don’t absolutely apperceive which gold banker is affairs you absolute gold, and you can’t accurately amount gold back you’re affairs it in concrete form. Digix offers a cellophane appraisement archetypal for affairs bazaar amount gold, and you don’t accept the aegis considerations of concrete commitment and custody.”

He additionally believes that gold will resume its role as a safe-haven asset in the accident of an bread-and-butter downturn, stating:

“Many of the adolescent ancestors are adverse the achievability of an bread-and-butter recession for the aboriginal time in their able lives. Gold-backed tokens accord them admission to an asset of solid amount that they can buy and abundance through their adaptable phones.”

On the affair of whether Digix may accede reestablishing a DAO already the abstraction has matured, Djie is befitting an accessible mind. 

He said:

“Who knows? In the future, we ability be allowance added organizations set up DAOs, or alike maybe alike authorize our own DAO again, you never absolutely know. But I do anticipate that all-embracing [the DigixDAO] agreement showed us that there’s a lot to be learned.”