Original title: Maker aims for $100bn stablecoin despite AI delay
Original author: Aleks Gilbert
Original source: dlnews
Compiled by: Mars Finance dlnews, Daisy
Investors have high hopes for an overhaul of the Maker Protocol.
The founders of Maker wanted to create a stablecoin for the masses.
Plans to harness AI will have to wait for advances in the technology.
The effort continues a long-running quest to find features that would bring crypto into the mainstream.
Even as the stablecoin market booms and financial giants launch their own dollar-pegged tokens, Maker’s DAI has lost momentum.
DAI’s token supply is around 5 billion, but new and fast-growing stablecoins are closing the gap. Meanwhile, established stablecoins Tether and Circle are extending their lead.
But the ambitious and controversial reforms proposed by Maker co-founder Rune Christensen are just weeks away from a phased rollout.
The plan, first proposed in 2022 and dubbed “Endgame,” would include a rebrand, a new token, new ways to earn yield, so-called subDAOs, and artificial intelligence — all in an effort to revitalize MakerDAO, the cooperative that runs the Maker protocol.
But they also aim to take Maker and its new stablecoin mainstream.
In his latest primer, Christensen said the goal is to increase DAI’s supply to “100 billion and beyond” — just shy of Tether’s $114 billion.
Tether and Circle dominate the stablecoin market, while Maker’s DAI is in third place.
“We want to be able to reach a wider audience,” Christensen said.
This is a big request.
While new products often claim they will “attract the next billion users,” most DeFi applications only serve a few thousand users.
Endgame controversy
A stablecoin is a token that is pegged to another asset, usually the U.S. dollar.
They’re the closest thing to cash in the cryptoeconomy and one of the few blockchain-based products with real-world utility.
Maker’s DAI is considered a “decentralized” alternative to USDT and USDC, two stablecoins that can be frozen or seized by their issuers, just like money in a bank.
Christensen called Endgame a "Trojan horse" that could bring decentralized currencies to the masses. But the proposal has been controversial.
The bill has undergone numerous revisions over the years, sometimes sparking heated votes, with critics accusing Christensen of abusing his enormous influence at MakerDAO.
Endgame has its supporters, too.
“Right now, our parents, our grandparents, aren’t going to log into Maker,” Mark Phillips, co-founder of Steakhouse Financial, a crypto consulting firm that’s working with MakerDAO, told DL News. Endgame could change that, he said.
Investors seem to like the plan. MakerDAO’s governance token MKR has performed well this year, up more than 60%, while the value of the entire crypto ecosystem has risen 34%.
Manufacturer rebranding
The first step in Endgame’s “launch season” will be the unveiling of Maker’s rebranding, as well as the names of its new stablecoin and governance token.
A month later, both products will be launched alongside a new mobile app.
If users want to take advantage of Endgame’s main feature: yield farming, they can choose to upgrade their DAI and MKR to “NewStable” and “NewGovToken”.
Users can earn interest on the new stablecoin through Maker’s existing savings rate, which was 7% on Friday, or in the form of governance tokens.
Those who hold the new governance token can “activate” it to earn interest and participate in Maker governance.
The most loyal members of the cooperative can earn greater returns by locking MKR or the new governance token into the platform.
“This is the best place to save and grow your money long term,” Christensen said.
He said the rewards should attract new voters to MakerDAO, which is currently dominated by “whales” who own so much MKR that they feel obligated to participate.
Philips agrees.
“One problem that’s prevalent in crypto and DeFi in general is that people often lack the incentive to participate in governance,” he said.
AI
The final step will be the launch of Maker’s first subDAO – a cooperative within the MakerDAO cooperative.
The first subDAO will govern Spark, a year-old lending protocol inspired by Aave and launched by Phoenix Labs, a company led by Spark founder Sam McPherson.
SubDAO is designed to solve one of the problems that has plagued MakerDAO: cumbersome bureaucracy. Christensen said that by outsourcing the management of certain functions to sub-organizations, the volunteers who help run MakerDAO will be less exhausted.
But the plan hit a snag.
Christensen initially hoped to launch several subDAOs simultaneously.
Instead, only the Spark subDAO will be launched first, with others following as need arises, Christensen said.
That’s because Avengers: Endgame is betting big on artificial intelligence.
“Things are a little bit complicated right now,” McPherson told DL News about MakerDAO governance.
Eventually, AI will be used to scour MakerDAO’s forums, where members discuss proposals and service providers share data and progress reports.
The hope is that AI will be able to distill activity on the forum and help members make informed decisions.
MacPherson said AI "will help the average voter understand in a very simple way whether things are going well, whether things are not going well."
But AI isn’t developing fast enough.
“AI is really great most of the time, but it also has a lot of hidden bugs and little glitches that make it unreliable,” Christensen said.
Meanwhile, the Maker co-founder believes a new, cohesive brand and the opportunity to earn yield on tokens will drive mass adoption.
“In that sense, it’s a bit of an experiment,” he said. “Maybe what’s missing from cryptocurrency is the effort to make it really ubiquitous.”
