Aragon Society to Dissolve $155M in Assets to Asset Tokens

According to a November 2nd blog post, Aragon's software will be liquidated, distributing most of its assets to token holders in the process. An entity called Aragon Association (AA) has been distributing 86,343 Ether (ETH) worth an estimated $155 million from its treasury to token holdings.

We have an important update for all @Aragonproject stakeholders. We passed a resolution:

– Deploy most of the treasury to allow all ANT holders to redeem their ANT for ETH

— Aragon Assoc (@AragonAssoc) November 2, 2023

The money is distributed through a smart contract on the Ethereum network. Each ANT token holder will receive 0.0025376 ETH ($4.57 at current price) per ANT they send for redemption. After all redemptions are made, the body burns and dissolves all the ANT in the contract. ANT will have no utility after this point, the article said.

$11 million from the treasury will be transferred to the Aragon Shield Foundation and will be held “to cover unforeseen obligations and prevent regulatory uncertainty.” The group will reorganize as a “company” that will continue to grow Aragon products. A “Product Council” will also be created to help guide decisions about product development.

Aragon is the developer of Aragon, a set of developer tools used to create decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). It also developed an Aragon application that allows developers to create DAOs without having to write code.

Related: Aragon and Polygon Labs team up to boost DAO accessibility.

In deciding to withdraw, the AA said that “bureaucratic complexity, misaligned stakeholders and failed attempts at management change have added to the tension in the project”, saying it could not find a way to continue the association in the face of these challenges. The firm tried to save itself by trying to “control the treasury directly in the hands of ANT holders”. But “dynamic gap […] between the value of the treasury and the market value of the token” made this attempt unsuccessful. Therefore, he decided to return the money to the investors and dissolve the association.

In May, a group called the “Risk Free Value (RFV) Raiders” attempted to take over Aragon's treasury by buying ANT tokens and selling the association for votes. The association calls this the “51% attack”. In response, he scrapped plans to transfer power to token holders. The team launched the Base Network version of its DAO creation tools on August 9.