In an interesting development, Singapore based Digix Global, a company that plans to bring physical gold-backed tokens to the Ethereum blockchain, recently announced that it would be returning 465,000 ETC to holders of DigixDao (DGD) tokens. In an industry currently riddled with scams, fake ICO’s, theft, and blatant self-interest, this is a pleasant surprise from what is considered one of the top development teams in blockchain technology.

After a successful ICO in March of 2016, which was intended for the creation of Digix Dao, Digix had raised over 465,000 ETH, worth $5,500,000 at the time. The funds were immediately locked into an Ethereum contract, and have not been touched since. When Ethereum hard-forked its protocol later in 2016, Digix Dao ended up with 465,000 ETC to match its ETH holdings. Today, Digix Dao’s ETH and ETC holdings are worth approximately $45,000,000.

The funds belong to Digix Dao, the individual holders of DGD tokens, who will hopefully soon become the first Decentralized Autonomous Organization to exist on the Ethereum blockchain. And those DGD holders will be the ones to decide how the 465,000 ETH are spent. With the ETH in Digix Dao, token holders will fully decide on projects that will spur the adoption of Digix.

I recently asked Digix CEO, KC Chng, about the plan to return the 465,000 ETC to DGD holders. Mr. Chng said, “Well, the fact is that the ETC funds do not belong to Digix, they belong to token holders, and we cannot claim the ETC or ETH for ourselves, as they belong to Digix Dao. On top of this, Digix development is happening on the ETH main chain, so the ETC cannot be effectively governed with DigixDao tokens.” He went on to say, “I think the main point that people need to understand is that DigixDao didn’t hold a crowdsale where devs get access to the entire pool of funds. The funds belong to DGD token holders, for the creation of a real Dao.”

With 2 million DGD tokens outstanding, there will be approximately 0.23 ETC returned for every 1 DGD token. The Digix team is currently working to implement a smart contract for the distribution of the funds.