Crypto's hyped decentralized decision-making orgs may not be so decentralized after all, calling their purpose into question

When DAOs become CAOs... Imagine if a bunch of ants got together to form a colony without a queen — and ended up managing billions in assets. That’s kind of like DAOs (aka: decentralized autonomous organizations), crypto communities where token holders have decision-making power. But a new report has found that 10 major DAOs sort of have a queen after all: fewer than 1% of token holders control 90% of voting power. This centralization has consequences:

• So long, Solend: The DAO behind a Solana-based lending protocol voted to take over Solend’s largest user’s wallet in mid-June — but 88% of the vote came from a single crypto address.
• Second try: The Solend DAO appeared to realize centralization wasn’t a good look and reversed itself with a second vote. Still, the reputational damage to DAOs was done.

Don’t let me DAO... As crypto winter hits, centralized points of failure are rearing their heads. And it’s not just DAOs. Crypto lender Celsius’ DeFi play imploded, and then it unilaterally froze customer withdrawals (a rather centralized move for the “innovators of decentralized finance”). Meanwhile, some of crypto's main players see consolidation as key to success:

• Fire sale: CNBC reported that Crypto exchange FTX was in talks to buy crypto lender BlockFi at bargain-basement prices. Last valued at $4.8B, BlockFi could go for $25M (womp).
• Bi-now: The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, is ready to gobble up struggling competitors, eying “50 to 100 deals.”