Gnosis, the DAO behind Secure, CoW Swap, Gnosis Chain and Gnosis Pay, has voted to fireplace its treasury administration accomplice KPK, with 88% voting in favor.
Proposal GIP-143 cites “extensive community discussions” about KPK’s “performance, cost, risk exposure, and alignment with DAO objectives.”
The GnosisDAO treasury is valued at over $175 million, in response to DeFiLlama knowledge.
KPK, previously Karpatkey, started as a part of Gnosis earlier than spinning-off right into a separate entity final yr.
In a latest replace, made on the identical day as GIP-143, KPK detailed its efforts to chop prices from “$6.3 million in 2024 [to] $2.2 million in 2025 to date.”
It additionally promised to “clarify scope” by limiting focus to “treasury and liquidity management.”
Complaints
Nevertheless, the cost-savings seem like too little, too late. Gnosis discussion board customers pointed to “highly contentious” charges of 1% of AUM and 20% of yield generated (2022’s GIP-58).
One consumer referred to previous discussions over underperformance towards benchmark property sUSDS from Sky, previously Maker, and Lido’s wstETH.
One other accused KPK of failing to handle concentrated liquidity positions, the place “around $8 million is out of range.”
Along with the above, an incident with a EURe/sDAI liquidity pool on Balancer created tensions again in June. The pool was arrange by KPK, Gnosis and Balancer, and held DAO funds to facilitate swaps and earn charges.
The pool, which acted as “the primary source of liquidity for GnosisPay,” was configured with an oracle which solely up to date each three hours and never on weekends.
The consumer who notified Gnosis discussion board estimated that $700,000 was misplaced to arbitrage of the lagging costs.
The put up notes KPK’s (and Balancer’s) “catastrophic” incident administration, whereas KPK apologized and promised a refund, together with a bounty for the consumer who flagged the bug.
Responses to proposal GIP-143 additionally notice “shameless” votes from KPK workers, which reportedly made up 75% of help.
It’s not solely Gnosis the place KPK’s efficiency has been introduced into query. Discussions on the Ethereum Title Service boards famous that whole returns didn’t beat inflation.
Customers additionally discovered errors in some yield calculations.
KPK’s defence
KPK’s response to the proposal pointed to the poorly outlined scope of the preliminary engagement and a ballooning of duties. It additionally famous 2024’s proactive removing of “idle holdings” from the charge base, and a $2 million charge cap.
KPK does, nonetheless, recognise that they “should have delivered structured updates and clear reporting cycles.” This concentrate on communication was reiterated in an Open Letter, although customers pushed again, stating “it’s not a communication issue, it’s a performance issue.”
DeFi getting leaner
Treasury managers and threat consultants are a means for DAOs to outsource delicate work to specialists, fairly than counting on token holder voting.
Nevertheless, accusations of service suppliers siphoning-off charges whereas doing the naked minimal aren’t unusual. DAOs are actually seemingly pushing again on the absolutely decentralized mannequin.
Final yr, a public spat between DeFi lending big Aave and its former threat advisor got here to a head when Gauntlet jumped ship to competitor Morpho.
Extra lately, Uniswap’s transfer to activate the long-awaited “fee-switch,” while consolidating operations left DeFi divided.
This month, the status of vault “curators” has taken a beating following spectacular collapses of methods run by these pleased to take charges whereas depositors take the chance.
One observer from Sandbox Tree Capital recommended Gnosis DAO’s transfer as a “business sense driven decision.”
