Crypto lending platform MakerDAO, the protocol behind the $5 billion DAI stablecoin, is planning to invest $1 billion from its reserves in tokenized US Treasury products. Leading players in the sector including BlackRock's BUIDL, Superstate and Ondo Finance are preparing to apply for the proposal.

“We think this is a very good move from MakerDAO, and we are excited to join BlackRock's BUIDL,” Carlos Domingo, CEO of crypto platform Securitize, BlackRock's issuing partner, said in a email sent to CoinDesk. “As a leading issuer of tokenized bonds, we will definitely apply.”

“Superstate's USTB is the ideal partner for MakerDAO,” Superstate founder Robert Leshner told CoinDesk. “We are excited that MakerDAO is creating an open process so we can introduce USTB to the community.”

Ondo Finance (ONDO), a $550 million RWA platform, also plans to participate. “This is a natural fit in our mission to bring institutional-grade financial products and services to everyone,” Nathan Allman, founder of Ondo Finance, said in a message on Telegram. “We look forward to participating.”

Maker's governance token (MKR) jumped 5% following news of issuer interest in the proposal.

MakerDAO's plan means a significant restructuring of its reserve strategy as the protocol, one of the pioneers in decentralized finance (DeFi), enters a new era under the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Plan. Endgame plan by founder Rune Christensen. The protocol has been at the forefront of the real asset (RWA) trend in crypto, backing its decentralized stablecoin in part with US government bonds and bills held off-chain with various counterparties.

The open competition titled “Spark Tokenization Grand Prix” to allocate $1 billion to crypto products was announced on Thursday at ETHCC in Brussels, Belgium, and was also detailed in an article by Spark SubDAO.

Spark Protocol is a lending platform built on the Maker platform, and is said to “become the main hub for real assets (RWA) on Maker and Ethereum,” the announcement said. It is led by Spark SubDAO, a smaller decentralized autonomous organization within MakerDAO.

Applications will open on August 12 with more details about the competition to be announced in the coming weeks, the post said.

The investment will be funded by the diversion of reserves from the Monetalis-managed Clydesdale facility and the BlockTower-managed Andromeda facility, said Sebastien Derivaux, co-founder of Steakhouse Financial, a DeFi advisory firm and a said the author of the crypto bond proposal.

Monetalis is withdrawing from MakerDAO following backlash from the community for not presenting its reserves report in a timely manner.

Big boost for crypto bonds

MakerDAO's investment will be a major boost to crypto-real asset protocols due to its massive scale.

US Bonds has been at the forefront of tokenization efforts by digital asset companies and traditional financial institutions. These products are attractive for protocol funds because they are low-risk instruments where they can deposit blockchain-based fiat and earn stable yields without leaving the blockchain ecosystem.

The market for these products has tripled in a year to $1.85 billion, according to data provider rwa.xyz.

MakerDAO's allocation will increase by another 55%.

This is not the first similar action.

ArbitrumDAO, an organization that develops the Arbitrum ecosystem, completed a similar competition called STEP on Thursday to allocate the equivalent of 35 million ARB tokens – about 27 million USD – in crypto products.

Source: https://tapchibitcoin.io/makerdao-dau-tu-1-ty-usd-vao-trai-phieu-blackrock-ondo-superstate.html