In late September, when a bug was introduced into the autonomous Compound protocol, which then erroneously disbursed $80 million worth of COMP to some users, Leshner handled the situation poorly – at first. He seemed to threaten users with Federal action when asking that they return the funds. This caused some confusion and consternation. Realizing this, Leshner quickly apologized, owned up to his “bone-headed” statement made in haste and exhibited a type of leadership that’s rare in crypto with the resolve to admit fault. Leshner may not be a philosopher-king, but in calling the decision whether to reimburse Compound a “moral dilemma,” he showed that humans still have an important role to play in DeFi, even if robots run the code.
