USDD Governance and the TRON DAO Reserve

TRON DAO Reserve, which purports to govern the decentralized stablecoin USDD, lacks a true decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

Historically, there was a governance portal allowing users to vote on USDD changes, but it has been used only once over the protocol’s several-year history, and the voting page has since been removed.

Although governance appears to have been removed, USDD documentation still claims that “the governance framework of the USDD ecosystem is designed to be community-driven and decentralized.” It further asserts that “governance empowers stakeholders to make critical decisions regarding the protocol’s future.”

On the USDD website, it states that “USDD is governed by a decentralized community where users actively participate in the protocol’s decision-making process,” claiming it features “Decentralized Governance” that evolves through community proposals and voting.

However, the governance of USDD has not been truly decentralized. For instance, the launch of USDD 2.0, the removal of Bitcoin as collateral, and the removal of the governance portal occurred without community input.

Only one vote has ever taken place, which authorized the use of “burned” funds by the project, demonstrating a misunderstanding of both DAO principles and what “burned” funds mean.

It’s unclear why USDD misrepresents the TRON DAO Reserve as a DAO while falsely claiming decentralized governance. Protos reached out to USDD’s X account and email for clarification on these discrepancies but did not receive an immediate response.