CFTC Wins Ruling "A DAO Is A Person"

GM GM. Welcome to Lootbox. This is edition 100, so let’s take a moment to celebrate. Popping the virtual champagne.

Cue it the Oscar Award speech - Thank you, God, thank you, mama and thank you to all readers.

All kidding aside, it’s been a fabulous journey so far having you all read these emails every time it comes out.

Let’s get started with what you came here for

  • A DAO is a person?

  • Gaming market report from Denton

  • The Sneakies

A DAO Is A Person?

The CFTC just won a major ruling that could set a precedent in giving DAOs the corporation treatment.

A DAO is now a “person” under the Commodity Exchange Act.

So what’s this case?

The CFTC filed a case against Ooki DAO, a DeFi trading platform, in the federal court in California, but the DAO opted not to fight back.

Since nobody showed up, the judge passed a default judgment that ordered Ooki DAO to pay a civil monetary penalty of $643,542, permanently banned trading and registration, and instructed third-party web hosting or domain registrars to shut down Ooki’s website and remove its content from the internet.

What this means

If this ruling is held as a precedent for future rulings, DAOs will get the same treatment as an LLC but without liability protections. So DAO members are essentially exposed to legal liability.

Dentons, a major law firm, came out with their report on the state of the gaming industry.

Here are the highlights of their findings

  • They expect free-to-play (F2P) with ads to remain the dominant monetization model with its potential expansion to PC and consoles but see hybrid models continue to develop.

  • While the play-to-earn (P2E) model remains relatively fringe, it continues to be an interesting alternative for game companies to gain additional revenues and player base.

  • Most executives in gaming believe the video game industry is the center of the metaverse, and nearly half of them are prioritizing investments in virtual, augmented or mixed reality experiences.

  • Developers see generative AI as a tool to augment their work, not replace them, while there is still the belief that cloud gaming would revolutionize games the same way it did for music and video.

  • The newer generation is more involved in games and uses them as a place to meet and hang out with friends. This has led to the rise of more multiplayer games, and they expect more to come.

  • With the rise of e-sports, they found the most profitable markets are currently the US, China, Brazil, and South Korea.

The Sneakies

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