The decentralized DeFi lending and borrowing protocol Sky, previously known as Maker, has launched its USDS stablecoin on Solana to penetrate this blockchain's growing DeFi ecosystem.
On November 19, Sky announced on X a post stating that its USDS is the 'first major native stablecoin on Solana's DeFi' and will open new ways for lending and trading on Solana's leading DeFi platforms.
Sky stated that today's launch marks the first step in Sky's strategy to increase DeFi liquidity and the total value locked (TVL) of Solana, adding that in the future, after governance approval, they will deploy the cross-chain bridge SkyLink for USDS and sUSDS, the 'savings' version of the stablecoin.
USDS is the new name for the stablecoin Dai (DAI), which aims to maintain a value equal to 1 US dollar. Sky also rebranded from Maker in August, and the confusion surrounding this change led co-founder Rune Christensen to propose reverting to the original name, but four major investors blocked this, causing Sky to retain its current name.
In an effort to attract Solana users to use the rebranded token, Sky is offering rewards to early adopters and liquidity providers of the stablecoin across various DeFi protocols.
Kamino Finance users will have the opportunity to earn $200,000 in USDS as weekly rewards for USDC/USDS liquidity providers and $100,000 in USDS each week for stablecoin providers.
Meanwhile, there will be a $100,000 reward in USDS for stablecoin providers for Drift Protocol. Those providing USD-pegged assets for Save Finance will have the chance to receive a share of $400,000 in USDS in monthly rewards.
The Sky team stated that the native integration of the protocol through Wormhole’s Native Token Transfer (NTT) 'enables smooth USDS operations on Solana.'
USDS is the third largest stablecoin by market capitalization at $5.3 billion, accounting for 2.8% market share in a market dominated by Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), which together hold up to 88% of the total market share.
DeFi on Solana has seen strong growth this year, with total value locked increasing by 487% year-to-date, reaching $8.34 billion, according to DefiLlama. However, Solana's popularity is primarily driven by investment in meme coins due to low costs and the fast pace of creating them on the network with launchpads like Pump.fun.
DeFi growth on Solana this year. Source: Defillama
The former governance token, Maker (MKR), has lost 30% of its value since the name change when the protocol encouraged holders to switch to the new token, Sky (SKY).
New acceptance has been slow as the SKY governance token is not yet listed for trading on exchanges.
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