MakerDAO CTO Departs, Points to Internal Conflicts

Published at: April 28, 2019

Andy Milenius, formerly the chief technology officer at MakerDAO, published an open letter dated April 3 explaining his concerns over the project’s internal conflicts. MakerDAO is the  company behind the decentralized algorithmic Ethereum-based stablecoin DAI as well as the governance token Maker (MKR).

In his 24-page-long letter, Milenius describes a conflict between his ideas of equal workspace and democratization true to a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) and his fellow executives’ desire for a traditional corporate efficiency.

The text accuses Rune Christensen, the CEO of the company, of having tried to take control over the DAO, causing the project’s core developers to become uncollaborative. The developers worked in a separate company dubbed DappHub, apparently to safeguard their independence, the text explains.

The letter also illustrates how at one point Milenius intimated to Christensen that if Matt Richards, at the time the president and chief operating officer of the company, wouldn’t leave, then Milenius would. This action reportedly resulted in Richards’ departure.

Millenius confirmed to Cointelegraph today, April 28, that the letter was in fact authored by him and that he is no longer the CTO of MakerDAO.

Yesterday, on April 27, Richards published an answer to the accusations in a Reddit thread, explaining his view on their conflict. In his post he states:

“It was not enough for Andy to reinvent the financial system. He also had to reinvent the way that work gets done (he didn’t know how it needed to be different, only that it did).”

Richards also complained that, according to him, Milenius thought that no accountability was acceptable and that he didn’t pay attention to MKR  token holders’ interest. He also claims that to Millenius “the efficiency that came with explicit hierarchy did not outweigh how uncool or unfair it was.” He concludes:

“I am hopeful about the future of this project and believe it will likely be better off without Andy.”

As Cointelegraph reported earlier this week, DAI has recently struggled to hold its peg to the United States dollar, but the community is seemingly confident in the token’s success.

Also, the firm behind stalwart stablecoin tether (USDT) has recently responded to allegations that its funds were used to cover an $850 million loss at crypto exchange Bitfinex, claiming that court filings by the New York Attorney General’s office are “riddled with false assertions.”

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Ethereum
Altcoin
Dao
Stablecoin
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