In an open letter on Tuesday, Arca, a cryptocurrency investment fund, called on Aragon, a DAO builder, to conduct buybacks of its ANT token. This is adding institutional backing to the activist investor dispute that is currently surrounding the crypto governance startup.
“We are planning to work with other tokenholders to propose that Aragon continue the buybacks to return ANT to book value,” wrote researcher Alex Woodard in the letter, referring to the discrepancy between the value of ANT and the size of Aragon’s warchest.
An open letter from Aragon, a crypto governance project creating tools for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), has exacerbated an ongoing dispute with a small group of activist investors. These investors are critical of the project’s leadership and are demanding they provide a way for dissatisfied investors to leave the project.
Last week, a dispute arose between Aragon and Woodard when Aragon banned a minimum of six Discord members, claiming they were attempting to cause disruption rather than being part of the community. Woodard reacted to this by writing a letter in which he claimed that the inquiries he had made over the last few months were intended to bring clarity to the community’s finances, not to stir up trouble.
“There is no doubt that community management and governance are hard, but selectively removing the voices of the few tokenholders who want to engage strikes me as a massive step in the wrong direction,” Woodard wrote in the letter.
The crypto hedge fund Arca, with $200 million in assets under management at the end of last year, has previously been active in governance debates. Now, their promise to work with “other tokenholders” could help to energize and increase the impact of the activist effort.
