Kraken to Support Direct DAO Token Trading for Fiat Currency

Kraken today will become one of the first major international exchanges to trade DAO tokens — and users will be able to trade directly between DAO and five different fiat currencies.

Also read: ‘Decentralized Uber’ Arcade City: ‘We Will Submit a DAO Proposal’

The exchange will begin trading around 12pm UTC (7am EST) on Saturday, May 28, just hours after DAO tokens themselves become transferable. As well as the five major trading currencies (USD, EUR, JPY, GBP and CAD) DAO tokens can also be exchanged with bitcoin and ether.

Until now, DAO tokens have been available as a pre-sale and could only be bought with ether, the “currency” of Ethereum.

Other exchanges planning to support DAO token trading in some form are Poloniex, Bittrex, BTCMarkets, Gatecoin and Shapeshift — some of which do not trade fiat currencies.

The DAO Rises

The DAO (or “Distributed Autonomous Organization”) has captured the attention and imagination of the cryptocurrency space since it began a crowdsale of its tokens in March. Selling tokens in return for ether only, it had already raised the equivalent of $18 million USD by early May.

The start of exchange trading for DAO tokens marks the end of the DAO Creation Phase, meaning the minimum 5,000,000 tokens is now in existence.

The DAO seeks nothing less than to revolutionize the way corporations are funded and governed, offering them distributed hierarchies in which crucial decisions are made by stakeholders.

Its stated goal is “To blaze a new path in business organization for the betterment of its members, existing simultaneously nowhere and everywhere and operating solely with the steadfast iron will of immutable code.”

What Is the DAO For?

Proposals for new organizations will be submitted to the DAO, where members will vote to approve (ie., fund the proposal) or decline. Once approved, DAO members may or may not have further say over the day-to-day operation of the new organization — all this is determined by the code of Ethereum’s smart contract platform.

Members will have voting power proportionate to the number of DAO tokens they hold. To safeguard against bad actors attempting to hijack the DAO by controlling over 51% of shares, its funds are ultimately managed by a team of “Curators” who hold the keys to the organization’s multisig wallets.

DAO holders will be able to withdraw their stakes at any stage, so long as they are not already committed to a proposal.

So far, the highest-profile organization to announce a DAO proposal is Slock.it, which uses smart contract technology to enable a distributed rental platform for everything from bikes and cars to apartment rooms.

Kraken’s Growth in 2016

Kraken has in the past year positioned itself as one of the world’s most significant digital currency trading platforms.

Most well-known in Europe and Japan, Kraken has increased its customer base and trading volumes dramatically since it officially entered the North American market in January 2016.

It acquired the US-based exchange Coinsetter and the Canadian Cavirtex, allowing it to begin facilitating deposits and withdrawals in both local currencies.

On the other side of the world, Kraken is notable for investigating the loss of 850,000 bitcoins from former market leader Mt. Gox, and for managing the creditor claims process. On May 25th, it announced that the defunct company’s bankruptcy trustee had reached a decision on whether claims have been approved or denied.

Will you be trading any fiat or digital currencies for DAO tokens? Do you predict the distributed organization will be the model for business funding and operation in future?

Images courtesy of Kraken, DAO.