Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)
On September 18, the established DeFi leader Maker officially completed its brand upgrade and rebranding, changing its name to Sky while also initiating the token migration from MKR to SKY and from DAI to USDS.
More than a month later, perhaps due to the original Maker brand being deeply ingrained in people's minds, and the original tokens MKR and DAI having already accumulated a wide range of use cases, the migration process to the new brand and new tokens seems to be rather challenging.
Dune data shows that as of the time of writing, approximately 900 million DAI have been migrated to USDS, accounting for about 15.5% of the current total supply of DAI (5.8 billion); approximately 91,880 MKR have been migrated to SKY, accounting for 10.6% of the current circulating supply of MKR (868,478).
Meanwhile, many users expressed confusion within the community regarding the utility (e.g., Seal), functions (e.g., Activation), supply situation (e.g., Early Bird airdrop), and ecological positioning (e.g., relationships with Spark and other Stars) of the new tokens under the new brand, believing that the rebranding has instead blurred the protocol's positioning and negatively impacted community consensus.
From the perspective of price trends, the market does not seem to be particularly enthusiastic about Maker's upgrade, especially considering that established DeFi protocols like Aave and Uniswap have had impressive performances recently, while the price of MKR (which has a fixed exchange ratio with SKY, thus still reflecting the protocol's market value) has been on a downward trend.
Last night, perhaps realizing that the brand rebranding wasn't quite successful, Maker founder Rune Christensen published a lengthy post on his personal social media discussing the possibility of reverting the brand back to Maker...
When discussing the 'information chaos' in the community, Rune stated: 'Using Sky as the name for the protocol, token, and frontend has indeed created some confusion. Now we are more aware than ever of 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 rather than upgrading to SKY.'
In this regard, Rune briefly outlined his initial thoughts on restarting 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, within this framework:
Maker will continue to operate as a decentralized protocol on the backend, supporting USDS, DAI, and various StarDAOs, and 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. In terms of positioning, Sky will be on par with Spark, both being frontend applications based on the Maker protocol, but their focuses will differâSky will only focus on the minting/redemption of the USDS stablecoin, while Spark is a lending market that requires collateral management.
Within this framework, USDS will not change and will still be governed by Maker and MKR.
It is evident that Rune now wants to retain the new brand Sky while not wanting to give up the influence accumulated by the Maker brand in the past... Under this vision, the only thing not mentioned by Rune seems to be the new governance token SKY, as it appears Rune intends to use MKR to replace the utility of SKY.
After outlining his vision, Rune also mentioned that he hopes the community will vote on the potential possibility of restarting the Maker brand, with several 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: Restart Maker as the core brand with its original image, restoring 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 slight modifications to better 'align' USDS and each Star.
Rune emphasized that restoring the Maker brand is currently only in the preliminary brainstorming stage, and more time is needed for the community to fully discuss it. He plans to hold a community call on October 25. After the community call, Rune will consolidate all feedback and move this topic to a community vote (which will require 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.
Throughout the history of the cryptocurrency industry, brand rebranding is not uncommon, but it is rare for a company like Maker to 'completely abandon an existing brand that has accumulated a high reputation, only to regret it and want to revert.' ... Odaily Planet Daily will continue to monitor the latest developments of this event and report timely.
