Compound reaches truce with crypto whale Humpy after controversial vote to move $24 million in tokens

Compound COMP +5.95% Finance brokered a truce with pseudonymous crypto whale Humpy and associated group The Golden Boys following intense discussions and what some community members had deemed a governance attack.

The conflict arose after Proposal 289 , led by Humpy, was passed under contentious circumstances intending to allocate $24 million worth of Compound’s treasury funds to a yield-bearing protocol led by The Golden Boys.

Soon after, the proposal was met with widespread criticism and allegations of vote manipulation — given that a small group had influenced the vote by purchasing large amounts of COMP tokens on the open market.

Under the new forum post — written by Bryan Colligan at Compound — Proposal 289 will be withdrawn, mitigating the governance risks it posed. In its place, a new staking product has been offered that aligns with the interests of all parties involved, particularly addressing the needs of Humpy as a recent delegate and COMP holder.

The proposed staking product claims to enhance the utility of COMP tokens by distributing 30% of the fresh token reserves generated annually to staked COMP holders. This distribution will be proportional to the amount of COMP staked by each holder.

While it will require a governance vote by the Compound DAO for on-chain deployment, this new suggestion has already been endorsed by Humpy and other Compound delegates on the governance forum — as well as security experts from OpenZeppelin and Gauntlet.

Michael Lewellen, a security solutions architect at crypto audit firm OpenZeppelin — who had vehemently opposed Proposal 289 — stated : “OpenZeppelin is happy to see a potential resolution on the table to ensure governance is protected and community interests are served. We’ve been working closely with many community delegates since Proposal 289."

After the latest development, the automatic on-chain deployment of $24 million from Compound’s treasury was canceled, on-chain data shows.

When the proposal 289 was approved last weekend, concerns had been raised about the Golden Boys’ intentions with Compound’s assets, emphasizing their repeated attempts to divert funds to their own product, goldCOMP. This suspicion was fueled by their history of making two previous proposals that were rejected by the Compound DAO.

Another issue was the security of the funds once transferred from Compound. There were worries that the funds directed to the ‘Trust Setup’ contract could be unsafe, as they would be controlled by a multisig wallet owned by the Golden Boys.

Humpy has previously engaged in similar contentious actions with other DeFi protocols, such as Balancer and Sushi. In these cases, Humpy accumulated substantial voting power to approve proposals, which may have favored personal interests rather than the wider goals of the DAO.