Governance proposal on Solana to take over a whale's funds

Chat / Discussion
1

Solend DAO, the DAO behind the Solend lending protocol on Solana, just passed its first ever governance proposal. A whale used their platform to take out an enormous margin position, depositing 5.7 million Solana (currently worth $170 million) to withdraw $108 million in stablecoins. Their position represents 95% of all Solana deposits on the platform, and the position risks partial liquidation if Solana drops in price to $22.30.

The proposal allows Solend to temporarily take over the whale’s account to liquidate the position “gracefully”, rather than allowing the liquidation to happen as it normally would. This stems from the concern that the partial liquidation (20%, or around $21 million) would “cause chaos” on both Solend and the Solana blockchain more broadly. The proposal outlined concerns around Solend potentially ending up with bad debt, and liquidators “spamming the liquidate function” and potentially taking down the Solana chain.

The proposal elicited strongly negative reactions from many in the crypto community, who feel that a project taking over a user’s account flies in the face of the concept of defi and sets a dangerous precedent. Others blame Solend for allowing the position in the first place, given the level of systemic risk. Some have also pointed out that Solend may be exposing themselves to legal risk by retroactively changing the terms of the loan.

The proposal succeeded hours after it was proposed, with one whale providing 1 million votes out of the 1.15 million votes in favor.

This is not Solana but Solend, which is a lending protocol on Solana. Scary that they can just give themselves “emergency powers” and take over funds:

Grant emergency power to Solend Labs to temporarily take over the whale’s account so the liquidation can be executed OTC and avoid pushing Solana to its limits. This would be done via a smart contract upgrade. Emergency powers will be revoked once the whale’s account reaches a safe level.

What do you think? Are you worried something similar could happen on Radix?

1 Like
2

Well of course since Radix is decentralized and governed by the community. This is why still have a way to go in crypto and shows how early we are. I mean this guy is trying to crash the project or just make alot of money, I know Luna may have been caused by centralized entities (government) who dont want crypto to succeed, is this another case ? It could even be a rival chain.

My question is what was the whales intention ? It is scary, seen alot of this type of behavior with companies also blocking users from taking out funds , its not a good trend.

1 Like