Gnosis DAO Faces a Massive Treasury Redemption Proposal, “The Treasury Plunderer” Returns Again

Title: “RFV Raiders” Target Gnosis DAO for Treasury Redemption Proposal

Author: Protos Original Text Translation: Chopper

Source:

Reprint: Mars Finance

A group of aggressive investors (or rather, treasury “plunderers”) is launching a treasury redemption proposal against GNO token holders.

GIP-150 proposes a one-time, voluntary, proportional treasury redemption plan. If the proposal passes, supporting holders will share a portion of the over $220 million in reserve funds from the Gnosis DAO treasury proportionally.

This proposal is less than six months away from the Gnosis DAO vote to remove the treasury manager KPK. The proposer, Wismerhill, stated that the market price of GNO tokens has long been undervalued relative to the net asset value of the Gnosis DAO treasury, and the discount is still widening.

He added that although the DAO recently paid $22.5 million to Gnosis Ltd, the discount of the token relative to net assets has further increased, making the value gain for GNO minimal.

The voting on the proposal is now open, with a deadline of May 12. Although initial support votes once led significantly, currently, out of the 330k votes cast, 65% are against.

The redemption amount will be calculated proportionally based on 1.3 million eligible GNO tokens, excluding tokens held by Gnosis Ltd. The reason given in the proposal is that this entity has long received DAO funding support.

Based on this, the estimated redemption value per token is about $170, which is nearly 30% higher than GNO’s current market price of $131.

Reactions from the DeFi Community

DeFi commentator and GNO holder Ignas admitted, “The RFV logic does have some merit,” but also pointed out, “This is purely an arbitrage trade, not a matter of morality,” and he has cast a vote against. (Note: RFV stands for risk-free value.)

Ivangbi, head of DeFi at the Ethereum Foundation, shares a similar view, stating that since Gnosis has never publicly claimed the treasury assets are backed by token prices, holders have no moral right to claim a share of the treasury.

Many others also oppose the proposal, citing Gnosis’s contributions to the industry ecosystem. Gnosis owns core infrastructure projects such as Safe, CoW Swap, Gnosis Pay, and Gnosis Chain.

Gnosis founder Sebastian Bürgel directly stated that the most respected ecosystem builder in the industry has now become a target for hedge fund exploitation. Nick Almond, head of the Jito ecosystem, directly characterized the proposal as a naked treasury dump and run.

Anthony Leutenegger, a representative of the Aragon team who was targeted by similar forces in 2023, offered a more moderate and rational perspective. He called for industry improvements in programmatic token holder rights mechanisms to better coordinate incentives and resolve such disputes.

Past RFV Arbitrage Cases

This group has launched similar treasury arbitrage actions multiple times in 2023, earning them the label “RFV Raiders” in the industry, though they do not accept this nickname.

Projects targeted include Rook, FEI/Tribe, and Aragon, with Aragon ultimately forced to adjust its treasury fund usage, transforming it into an ecosystem donation and grant program.

Recently, after Beefy Finance’s BIFI token fell below its treasury net asset value in April, the DAO quickly introduced a buyback mechanism to prevent a sudden RFV raid.

Regarding the current Gnosis incident, the proposer Wismerhill previously stated that he has always admired Gnosis DAO and predicted that after KPK’s removal, Gnosis would make more business-oriented decisions.

This vote will ultimately test whether GNO holders value short-term arbitrage gains more than long-term ecosystem development.