Centralized business structures are continuing their creep into decentralized finance (DeFi), with the builders of tokens Magic Internet Money (MIM) and SPELL on Wednesday pitching a traditional legal structure to supplant the DAO overseeing the stablecoin with a nearly $700 million market cap. In a forum post, a project leader called on Abracadabra DAO to support a “transition of power” to a centralized entity complete with lawyers, jurisdictions and trustees. Those trappings of a traditional corporation are seemingly antithetical to the notion of a DAO, the form of crypto-based business governance in which token holders directly call the shots. Despite our commitment to decentralization, we’ve recognized the importance of introducing a certain degree of centralized legal structure, the AbracadabraTeam account wrote. The purpose here is not to disrupt the decentralized nature of Abracadabra; in fact, it’s to protect it. Abracadabra DAO is the latest crypto project swapping the lofty idealism of decentralized governance for some degree of centralization, alongside SushiSwap and other projects. The reasons for these transitions range from heightened regulatory scrutiny to more mundane business concerns. For Abracadabra DAO, the publicly-shared reasons seem to tilt toward vanilla. AbracadabraTeam said the centralized entity would manage the DAO’s intellectual property as well as server expenses “while still keeping control in the hands of SPELL token holders.” Holders of SPELL (Abracadabra DAO’s governance token) will vote the project through three phases of transition, starting with picking a jurisdiction for the new entity. Four countries are on the table: Switzerland, Singapore, Malta and Bermuda. Phases two and three will define what the new entity’s roles are and how it will operate, according to the post. At press time, the SPELL token was trading 2.8% lower over the past 24 hours.

The attacker behind a takeover of Tornado Cash DAO has apparently started to move their illicitly gained tokens, blockchain data shows. Addresses tied to the attacker moved 100 ether (ETH) and 38,000 torn (TORN) tokens in two transactions using the Tornado Cash protocol on Wednesday night, Etherscan data shows. The DAO handling the privacy-focused crypto mixer's operations, funds, and future plans was taken over by an unidentified attacker, or attackers, on Saturday. The attacker holds over 20 ether ($35,684) in their wallet and continues to have access to potentially all of Tornado Cash’s treasury funds. The attacker floated a malicious proposal that hid a code function that granted them fake votes that can now be used to handle some aspects of Tornado Cash, such as torn tokens held in the main governance contract or withdrawal of locked torn tokens. DAOs, short for decentralized autonomous organizations, allow token holders to lock up their holdings as votes for proposing changes to a project. These changes can range from deploying treasury funds to purposes that benefit the project to expansion on other networks. The attack does not impact the actual Tornado Cash protocol – which allows users to pass funds through the service to mask or obscure the movements of funds and crypto addresses. As such, there’s still hope for Tornado Cash. The attacker floated a proposal to revert all malicious changes before the takeover earlier this week – sending torn prices up 10% at the time. The proposal looks as though it will pass when voting closes on May 26, though it's unclear when the action will be executed. However, if it does, the malicious code will be removed, and the governance of Tornado Cash's DAO will go back to token holders.

ApeCoin DAO has passed a community proposal that would see the launch of an Accelerator to support projects utilizing apecoin tokens (APE) and bolster the Bored Ape Yacht Club and ApeCoin ecosystems. The new AIP-209 will incubate and launch community-approved projects that focus on improving the value of the BAYC NFT collection and other projects that use ApeCoin. The 'Ape Accelerator' aims to engage the ApeCoin community as initiators, voters, and participants. Initiators can submit proposals for projects to be incubated, while voters can use their APE tokens to vote on whether the proposed projects should be launched. Participants will be able to support approved projects by purchasing NFTs and other yet-unspecified tokens. Projects which finally launch on the Accelerator will utilize apecoin, which may ultimately accrue value as they generate revenue and returns for holders. ApeCoin was initially issued as a governance token by creator Yuga Labs to holders of the popular BAYC NFT collection, which is composed of 10,000 unique images of cartoon apes that sell at $83,000 apiece as of Thursday. These tokens find use in other Yuga Labs projects, such as Otherside, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), CryptoPunks, MeeBits, and Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC) – all popular and influential NFT collections. The launchpad within Ape Accelerator will initially operate on the Ethereum network and feature a tiered structure for participation, based on users' APE stakes and qualifying NFT holdings.