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Amidst the ongoing controversy surrounding cryptocurrency media platform Bankless and its associated decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), BanklessDAO, the co-founders of Bankless, David Hoffman and Ryan Sean Adams, have proposed separating the brand from the DAO. They plan to submit a governance proposal to BanklessDAO to formalize this separation. In addition, Hoffman and Adams have announced their intention to burn all of their BanklessDAO (BANK) tokens. This decision comes in response to community criticism of BanklessDAO’s application for a grant from Arbitrum, a layer 2 scaling project for the Ethereum blockchain. The application requested a substantial amount of ARB tokens without providing sufficient details on how the funds would be utilized. The BanklessDAO community expressed concerns about leveraging the Bankless brand for ambitious proposals that may not align with the brand’s values. The debate between the proposal supporters and opponents quickly escalated on social media, with accusations of “legitimacy grifting” and criticism of the founders’ involvement in other projects. Bankless co-founder Adams defended the brand, emphasizing that running ads and having paid subscribers have always been part of Bankless’ mission. Bankless, founded in 2019, is a crypto media company that advocates for the adoption of bankless money systems. In May 2021, Bankless launched BanklessDAO, a decentralized community aimed at coordinating and promoting bankless media. The DAO also introduced the BANK token. In April 2023, Bankless founders announced the establishment of a $35 million venture capital fund to invest in seed-stage Web3 companies.