Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)
On September 18, the established DeFi leader Maker officially completed its brand upgrade and reshaping, launching the token migration from 'MKR to SKY' and 'DAI to USDS' while changing its name to Sky.
After more than a month, perhaps due to the original Maker brand being already deeply rooted in people's minds and the original tokens MKR and DAI having accumulated a wide range of application scenarios, the migration process to the new brand and new token does not seem to be going smoothly.
Dune data shows that as of the time of writing, about 900 million DAI have completed the migration to USDS, accounting for only about 15.5% of the current total supply of DAI (5.8 billion); about 91,880 MKR have completed the migration to SKY, accounting for only 10.6% of the current circulating supply of MKR (868,478).
Meanwhile, many users in the community have expressed confusion regarding the utility (such as Seal), functionality (such as Activation), supply situation (such as Early Bird airdrop), and ecological positioning (such as relationships with Spark and other Stars) of the new token under the new brand, believing that the brand reshaping has blurred the protocol's positioning and negatively impacted community consensus.
Odaily note: The above concepts can refer to (The founder's handwritten: What happens next after Maker transforms into Sky?).
From the price trend, the market does not seem to be enthusiastic about the upgrade of Maker, especially considering that established DeFi protocols like Aave and Uniswap have had varying degrees of impressive performance recently. The price of MKR (which has a fixed exchange relationship with SKY, thus still reflecting the market value of the protocol) has been declining.
Last night, perhaps realizing that the brand reshaping was not sufficiently successful, Maker founder Rune Christensen published a long article on personal social media discussing the possibility of returning the brand back to Maker...
When discussing the 'information confusion' in the community, Rune stated: 'Using Sky as the name for the protocol, token, and frontend has indeed caused 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.'
Regarding this, Rune briefly outlined his initial concept for rebooting the Maker brand. In short, Rune hopes to position Maker as a decentralized protocol on the backend while positioning Sky as a frontend DeFi product based on Maker. Under this framework:
Maker will continue to serve as the decentralized protocol on the backend supporting USDS, DAI, and various StarDAOs. MKR remains the sole governance token of Maker. The community can decide whether to maintain the original image of the Maker brand or redesign it.
Sky will serve as a frontend directly serving DeFi users. Sky will be positioned alongside Spark, both being frontend applications based on the Maker protocol, but the emphasis of the two will differ—Sky focuses solely on the minting/redemption 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 Sky brand while unwilling to give up the influence accumulated by the Maker brand in the past... In this concept, the only thing not mentioned by Rune seems to be the new governance token SKY, as Rune seems to want to replace the utility of SKY with MKR.
After outlining his ideas, Rune also mentioned wanting the community to vote on the potential of rebooting the Maker brand, with several options proposed back then as follows:
Option 1: Continue to use Sky as the core brand and stick to the latest brand upgrade strategy.
Option 2: Reboot Maker with its original image as the core brand and restore MKR as the sole 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 minor modifications to better align with USDS and various Stars.
Rune emphasized that the restoration of the Maker brand is currently only in the preliminary conceptual stage, and it will take some time for the community to fully discuss it. A community conference call is planned for October 25. After the community conference call, Rune will consolidate all feedback and advance this issue to a community vote (which requires multiple rounds). The voting is intended to start on October 28, and if approved, a multi-option vote will be conducted within the week starting November 4.
Looking at the development history of the cryptocurrency industry, brand reshaping is not uncommon, but an operation like Maker's 'first completely abandoning an already highly reputable original brand, then wanting to change back' is quite rare... Odaily Planet Daily will continue to follow the latest developments of this event and report promptly.
