Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)
On September 18, the established DeFi leader Maker officially completed its brand upgrade and reshaping, changing its name to Sky while also launching the token migration from MKR to SKY and from DAI to USDS.
More than a month later, perhaps due to the original brand Maker already being deeply rooted in people's hearts, and the original tokens MKR and DAI having accumulated a wide range of application scenarios, the protocol's migration to the new brand and new tokens does not seem to be going smoothly.
Dune data shows that as of the time of writing, approximately 900 million DAI have been successfully migrated to USDS, accounting for about 15.5% of the current total DAI supply (5.8 billion); approximately 91,880 MKR have been successfully migrated to SKY, accounting for about 10.6% of the current circulating supply of MKR (868,478).
Meanwhile, many users have expressed confusion within the community regarding the utility (e.g., Seal), functionality (e.g., Activation), supply situation (e.g., Early Bird airdrop), and ecological positioning (e.g., the relationship with Spark and other Stars) of the new tokens under the new brand, believing that the brand reshaping has instead blurred the protocol's positioning and negatively impacted community consensus.
From the price trends, the market does not seem to be enthusiastic about Maker's upgrade, especially considering that established DeFi protocols like Aave and Uniswap have had either long or short impressive performances recently; the price of MKR (which has a fixed exchange ratio with SKY, thus still reflecting the protocol's market value) has been declining steadily.
Last night, perhaps realizing that the brand reshaping was not successful enough, Maker founder Rune Christensen published a long article on his personal social media, discussing the possibility of reverting the brand back to Maker...
When discussing the community's emergence of 'information confusion,' Rune stated, "Using Sky as the name for the protocol, token, and frontend indeed adds some confusion. We are now clearer than ever about the DeFi community's love for the Maker brand. Users still trust this brand and the stability and security it represents... Many people still commit to holding MKR instead of upgrading to SKY."
In this regard, Rune outlined his initial thoughts on rebooting the Maker brand. In short, Rune hopes to position Maker as a decentralized protocol on the backend and Sky as a frontend DeFi product based on Maker, under this framework:
Maker will continue to support USDS, DAI, and various StarDAOs as a decentralized protocol on the backend, with MKR remaining the only governance token for Maker. The community can decide whether to maintain the original image of the Maker brand or to redesign it.
Sky will serve as a frontend that directly serves DeFi users. Sky will be positioned alongside Spark, both being frontend applications based on the Maker protocol, but their focuses differ — Sky focuses solely on the minting/redeeming of the USDS stablecoin, while Spark is a lending market that requires collateral management.
Under this framework, USDS will not change and will still be governed by Maker and MKR.
It can be seen that Rune now wants to retain the new brand Sky while also not wanting to give up the influence accumulated by the Maker brand in the past... In this conception, the only thing not mentioned by Rune seems to be the new governance token SKY; it appears Rune wants to use MKR to replace the utility of SKY.
After outlining his ideas, Rune also mentioned that he hopes the community will vote on the potential possibility of rebooting the Maker brand, with the proposed options from that year as follows:
Option 1: Continue to use Sky as the core brand and adhere to the latest brand upgrade strategy.
Option 2: Reboot Maker as the core brand with its original image, restoring MKR as the only governance token of the DAO.
Option 3: Reactivate the Maker brand with a new image, maintaining the classic design of the original brand but making slight modifications to better 'align' USDS and the various Stars.
Rune emphasized that restoring the Maker brand is currently only in the preliminary conceptual stage, and it will take some time for the community to discuss thoroughly. Then, a community conference call is planned for October 25. After the community conference call, Rune will integrate all feedback and advance the topic to a community vote (which requires multiple rounds), with voting expected to start on October 28. If approved, a multi-option vote will be executed within the week starting November 4.
Looking at the development history of the cryptocurrency industry, brand reshaping is not uncommon, but it is indeed rare for a case like Maker's, where they 'first completely abandon an existing brand that has accumulated a high reputation, and then regret and want to revert back'... Odaily Planet Daily will continue to monitor the latest developments of this event and report in a timely manner.
