Draft:Kpk DAO

• Comment: See WP:COI. Greenman (talk) 11:12, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

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kpk DAO

kpk (formerly karpatkey) is a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) formed in 2021, which focuses on supporting the development and adoption of onchain asset management through non-custodial management technologies. The DAO is known for its prominent contributions to the management of finances and accounting for many other leading decentralized finance DAO's, such as Uniswap DAO, ENS DAO and GnosisDAO.

Overview

kpk was founded to develop and deliver a range of management services, solutions, products and technology specifically for digital assets, including cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The project built on the early development of decentralized finance applications as a means of deploying and raising capital, to generate yield, support operations and finance investments. Though it has since expanded to cover a wider range, kpk's technology was built primarily for Ethereum and other EVM-based blockchains.

Having developing a reputation for delivering professional treasury management solutions to other decentralized autonomous organizations, kpk subsequently expanded its offering to cover full-service onchain asset management. This includes standalone growth and integration for specific digital assets, as well as bespoke research and development tasks to cater for the specific needs of its clients.

In developing its own range of technical solutions to serve its clients, kpk has become known for its "non-custodial" style of asset management, which prioritizes the preservation of the client's custody of its own assets by granting kpk strictly limited permissions to propose and/or execute pre-authorized activities from within the client's own self-custodial storage arrangements.

History

2021: Founding and Gnosis

kpk was founded in 2021 by Marcelo Ruiz de Olano and Alejandro Romero. The pair had met at university and bonded over a shared interest in finance and investing. After going their separate ways to esteemed careers in large international organizations, the pair reunited over a shared passion for cryptocurrency and Ethereum.

By 2021, Ruiz de Olano and Romero were contributing to the treasury management operations of the Gnosis ecosystem. Gnosis was founded as a prediction market project in January 2015, initially launched as part of Consensys. It subsequently expanded to develop a range of products including its own blockchain, multi-signature wallets and decentralized exchange technology. The pair founded karpatkey DAO (as it was known then) in 2021 under Gnosis' incubation, to develop asset management processes and technologies.

On 13 January 2022, the GnosisDAO formally approved the appointment of kpk as the DAO's sole treasury managers.

2022-2024: Rise to Prominence

Building on its initial work for GnosisDAO, kpk quickly expanded to offer similar solutions to a range of other DAOs. In doing so, it sought to develop standardized best practices and technology to deliver its now-signature non-custodial style of onchain asset management.

On 23 November 2022, kpk won a competitive tender process for selection of an endowment fund manager for the Ethereum Name Service (ENS) DAO.

On 20 April 2024, kpk was elected to serve on the Uniswap Treasury Working Group (UTWG), a body created through the formal governance process of the Uniswap DAO with a mandate to explore strategies to achieve sustainability and growth for the DAO's finances and treasury. The emergence of the UTWG was driven by the significant concentration of the Uniswap DAO's treasury in its native UNI token, as well as the stagnancy of the DAO's treasury since inception, which had been used primarily to fund external grants, rather than internal operations.

The UTWG completed and published its initial research on 5 December 2024, identifying a number of alternate (and in some cases complementary) pathways for mobilizing the DAO's treasury, as well as a range of key considerations that the DAO would need to bear in mind in any process of mobilization or selection of treasury managers.

In November 2024, kpk announced the completion of seed funding round. The cap table featured a range of prominent industry angels including Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Consensys, and Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave and Avara. It also included investments from large venture firms like AppWorks and Wintermute Ventures.

2025: Opening of Public Governance

Though kpk was created as a DAO due to its incubation within the Gnosis ecosystem, the decentralization of its operations took place gradually as the organization expanded over time. The opening of public governance in 2025 marked a significant change in the project's operations.

On 15 February 2024, kpk first signaled its intentions to open public governance and launch its KPK governance token through a proposal on the GnosisDAO governance forum. Though their proposal underwent significant changes before finally being approved on 28 February 2025, the final proposal confirmed kpk DAO's plans.

On 21 March 2025, karpatkey formally announce its rebrand to kpk, signaling an intention to simplify its brand identity and value proposition to focus on its core business of onchain asset management. This paved the way for kpk DAO to launch its public governance under a new name and identity.