MakerDAO, a Santa Cruz, California-based privately held firm that has launched a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) on the Ethereum blockchain, currently has around $325 million locked in its lending contracts.
This, according to the latest data from DeFi Pulse, which reveals that Maker’s dominance, or market share, of the nascent decentralized finance ecosystem currently stands at over 83%.
MakerDAO’s CTO Leaves Company Due To Internal Conflicts
Despite MakerDAO’s success as a cryptocurrency lending platform, Andy Milenius, the former Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at MakerDAO, has expressed concerns regarding the company’s internal management issues.
In a letter dated April 3rd, 2019 (which was only released recently), Milenius wrote that arguments took place among MakerDAO’s staff members regarding various workplace policies. According to Milenius, the crypto lending organization’s team members argued over what may be considered an equal opportunity workspace.
Milenius’ 24-page letter also noted that personnel at MakerDAO could not come to an agreement regarding what true democratization means, and how it would apply to a DAO. The former CTO at MakerDAO also alleged in the letter that Rune Christensen, the CEO at the crypto lending startup, had attempted to take full control of the organization’s operations. This reportedly led to MakerDAO’s developers becoming uncooperative, as they preferred working in a more collaborative environment.
Working At A Separate Company Called DappHub
As noted in Milenius’ complaint letter, the development team at MakerDAO had been working at a separate firm, called DappHub – in order to ensure that they were able to make their own decisions regarding how to move the crypto lending project forward.
Moreover, Milenius’ letter revealed that he had told Christensen that he would leave MakerDAO if Matt Richards, the Chief Operating Officer at the firm (at that time), did not resign. As mentioned in Milenius’ letter, Richards eventually left MakerDAO due to internal conflicts.
Milenius Not Receptive Towards MKR Token Holders’ Interest
On April 28th, 2019, Milenius informed the management at Cointelegraph that he had written the extensive complaint letter and that he had officially resigned from his position as the CTO at MakerDAO.
On April 27th, Richards released a letter which noted:
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).
According to Richards, Milenius had not been receptive towards MKR token holders’ interest and that “the future of [the MakerDAO] project … will likely be better off without” the company’s former CTO.
