KYB for DAOs – Anyone else getting the shivers?
Been pondering the whole KYB landscape, especially with the explosion of decentralized autonomous organizations. On one hand, the ethos is decentralization, anonymity, all that good stuff. On the other, if a DAO wants to interface with the traditional financial system – even just to pay for some development work or acquire assets – they're going to run headfirst into a brick wall of corporate verification. How do you even begin to perform due diligence on an entity where the 'members' might be pseudonymous, geographically dispersed, and whose 'structure' is code?
It feels like we're still trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Regulators, bless their cotton socks, are going to eventually wake up to the fact that 'controlling persons' aren't always going to be identifiable humans with passports. Anyone out there already grappling with this, or are most just punting it down the road for now? Seems like a ticking time bomb for any fintech daring to engage with these new organizational forms.
It's a really interesting point. Do you think DAOs will eventually fork into those that prioritize full decentralization and those that are willing to compromise for better integration with trad-fi, or will a new standard emerge?