Maker governance and community updates took center stage in October! The Maker Foundation’s Product team redesigned the Voting Portal to simplify proposal polling and voting, new governance Q&A sessions were announced, and the MakerDAO Community Development team unveiled its updated website. A lot more has happened since the September Making Maker, and it’s all here. But first, let’s look at the numbers from daistats.com as of November 2,  2020, 7:45 am PT. 

Total Dai:  942,900,541.69

Top 5 Dai Generators:  

Dai from USDC: 396,582,962.97 (42.06%)

Dai from ETH: 346,192,339.03 (36.72%)

Dai from WBTC: 107,678,555.07 (11.42%)

Dai from TUSD: 56,716,217.73  (6.02%)

Dai from PAX: 23,016,462.34 (2.44%)

Dai Savings Rate: 0%

Dai in DSR: 281,660,154.31

Vaults Opened: 16,453

Blog Round-up

Web3 and Blockchain Tech Edu Is the Focus of Maker’s FriDAI Brunch Series

Maria Magenes, Maker’s Community Lead for Europe and Africa, started her educational FriDAI Brunch meetup series in June, and it’s become a big hit. Learn why her friendly, laid-back gatherings have been well attended and are gaining in popularity.

The Top Five Ways the Dai Stablecoin Is Used Around the World

Worldwide, people generate the Dai stablecoin or purchase it to use for everything from international remittance and inflation protection to e-commerce and gaining access to the newest DeFi products and services.

Introducing the Redesigned, Easier-to-Use Maker Voting Portal

The importance of voting to the Maker project can’t be overstated. Learn how the Maker Foundation’s Product team reconfigured the Voting Portal to make proposal polling and voting simpler. 

Maker Foundation CEO Rune Christensen Talks Dai and DeFi in Ten Popular Videos

There’s no one better to explain the attraction to Dai and DeFi than Rune. In these videos, he discusses everything from his early experiences in crypto and his motivations for launching MakerDAO to the key benefits of Dai, decentralization, and the wider DeFi ecosystem.

Worth Repeating

The Maker Protocol’s Liquidations System Upgrade 1.2 Is Live

The redesign of the Liquidations system should increase community participation in collateral auctions, thereby improving decentralization while helping to maintain Dai’s peg to the dollar. 

How Dai Is Becoming the Currency of the NFT Digital Art and Culture Market

Discover below how platforms and artists are using NFT technology and Dai integration to reimagine the art market, making it not only more accessible but more innovative than ever before.

Developer Resources

Maker Protocol Technical Documentation

Everything—everything— you need to know about the upgraded Maker Protocol now exists in (highly technical) documentation. Get your geek on!

Developer Guides

MakerDAO’s Developer Guides help anyone integrate with Maker’s smart contracts, SDKs, APIs, products, and partners. Bookmark the guides and review them anytime.

Governance Updates

Miss This? Maker Governance Review: September 2020.

The Maker community now hosts weekly governance Q & A sessions. All are welcome to attend and learn more about how Maker governance works.

Governance Polls and Executive Votes in October 

• Oct. 30: Executive Vote: Mitigating Flash Loan Risk
• Oct. 26: Governance Polls: Add GUSD and PAXG as Collateral Types 
• Oct. 23: Executive Vote: Increase the Surplus Buffer, Oracle Whitelisting
• Oct. 19: Governance Polls: Greenlight Polls for Collateral Types,Whitelist Oracles and more
• Oct. 16: Executive Vote: Add ETH-B Vault Type
• Oct. 12: Governance Polls: Adjustments to Base Rate, add BAL & YFI as collateral, and more
• Oct. 5: Governance Polls: Adjustments to Base Rate and Collateral Onboarding, and more
• Oct. 2: Executive Vote: Raise the PAX Debt Ceiling and Decrease the Base Rate

To stay current on governance, risk, and community issues, bookmark the MakerDAO Public Events Calendar. Newcomers to Maker might want to review our series of posts on the MakerDAO Governance Risk Framework.

Rune Radio 

On October 14, Rune participated in the CoinDesk Invest: Ethereum Economy event hosted by CoinDesk’s Christine Kim. Rune joined Michael Anderson of Framework Ventures and Illia Polosukhin from NEAR Protocol to discuss Ethereum scaling challenges and opportunities. The talk, titled The Fees are too Damn High: Defi Pushes ETH 1.0 to Its Limit, was live-tweeted by Brady Dale.

On October 26, Rune participated in a panel discussion during IOSG’s DeFi Summit 2020. He, along with Zubin Koticha from Opyn, Hart Lambur from UMA, and Matt Luongo from Thesis, offered perspectives on DeFi governance, real-world assets, and the impact of ETH 2.0 on DeFi collateral types. Watch the panel discussion below:

On October 28, Rune again discussed the benefits of bringing real-world assets to DeFi at the Wanxiang Blockchain Summit 2020, the largest blockchain conference in China. 

The Latest Integrations and Partnerships

B. Protocol has integrated Maker Vaults. Now, anyone with a Vault can claim rewards for managing it via the B.Protocol interface. Learn more.

SomniumSpace is next-level virtual reality, and Maker is part of it. Look for the Dai House inside the Space in the coming weeks. In the meantime, mark your calendar for Somnium’s Secondary Land Offering, November 1 through December 18. Anyone can purchase parcels in three different currencies, including Dai.

Maker has partnered with CryptoLocally to increase DeFi accessibility and build more local peer-to-peer communities around the world, especially in developing countries.

Dai is now available on RSK’s Ethereum token bridge. Learn how it works.

The Coinbase Earn project now features MKR education videos. Anyone can watch short videos to earn the Maker governance token on Coinbase.  

Community Highlights 

The Redesigned MakerDAO Community Development Portal is Live 

The MakerDAO Community Development Team unveiled its updated portal early this month. Take a look to learn how to increase your knowledge of Maker, apply for a grant, join the team, and more.

Event Recaps

On October 1, Maria Magenes, the Maker Foundation’s Community Lead in Europe and Africa, and Sahabia Yakubu, Founder of DeFi Africa and MakerDAO Ambassador, co-hosted a discussion focused on blockchain education in Africa. Faith Obafemi, Black Women Blockchain Board Member, and Chimezie Chuta, coordinator of DeFi Africa, a Blockchain Nigeria user group, talked about their experiences and the challenges their projects currently face.

On October 6, Jocelyn Chang, the Maker Foundation’s Community Lead in Southeast Asia,

participated in a panel discussion at TechSauce Global Summit 2020. She, along with the founders of Hakka Finance and Band protocol, discussed how DeFi will shape the future of finance on the blockchain, and the newest major developments within the DeFi space. Techsauce is the leading source of all tech and business news in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Register here to watch the talk.

Maker Foundation President and COO Steven Becker and the Foundation’s Head of Business development Greg Di Prisco each spoke on panels during the LA Blockchain Summit (October 6-7). Steven provided his insights on the future of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) during a discussion titled DAOs on the Rise: Why are they the Future of How Crypto and Beyond Will Operate? Greg discussed Maker, Dai, and the future of crypto with other panelists during a discussion titled Understanding the Future Role of Stablecoins. Watch both talks below:  

On October 8, Jennifer Senhaji from the Maker Foundation’s Business Development team joined an NFT-focused panel hosted by the Blockchain Gaming Alliance. Jen provided Maker updates and discussed Dai’s ongoing utility in gaming and the collectibles market. Watch the conversation.

Also on October 8, Gustav Arentoft, the Maker Foundation’s Business Development Associate in Europe, participated in a panel discussion hosted by the International Token Standardization Association titled The Future of Payments—Fiat, Crypto, and DeFi. He and others in the crypto space discussed stablecoins, crypto payments, and real-world assets in DeFi.

On October 13, Nadia Alvarez, the Maker Foundation’s Business Development rep in LatAm, joined Rachel Mayer of Circle and Cleve Mesidor from the National Policy Network of WOC in Blockchain for a panel discussion titled How Stablecoins Will Drive Mainstream Growth and Adoption in the Cryptoeconomy. Nadia shared some of the issues Latin Americans face, and how they might be addressed through Dai awareness campaigns. Watch below (the conversation starts at 24:50):

On October 14, Steven Becker participated in a Fund Forum Asia 2020 panel discussion titled Crypto DeFi: Has Cryptocurrency Finally Arrived or Is it Yet Another Bubble About to Burst? He, alongside Hongfei Da of NEO, Stani Kulechov of Aave, Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX, and Aaron Choi of Kava, discussed what DeFi promises to deliver to all manner of financial services. The event was moderated by Wei Zhou of Binance. 

On October 15, Mariano Di Pietrantonio, Maker’s Community Lead in South America, attended the Forbes (Argentina) Fintech Innovation Summit. He participated in a panel discussion titled The End of Paper Cash, alongside Sebastian Nuñez, CEO of Geopagos, and Gaston Irigoyen, CEO of Naranja X, one of the top digital wallets from Argentina. Mariano talked about how Dai is used for remittances and to help users create a regional economy in Latin America.  

In preparation for the DeFi Madrid Hackathon on November 27, Maker Integrations Engineer Petru Catana explained the inner workings of the Maker Protocol to attendees of Desarrolo en MakerDAO, a DeFi Madrid preparation talk, on October 16. Petru will be a judge and mentor at the hackathon. Watch his presentation:

On October 17, Kurt Barry, Head of the Smart Contracts team at the Maker Foundation, gave a presentation at the Liquidity 2020 Summit titled The Dai Must Flow: Ensuring MakerDAO Auction Liquidity. Kurt explained Maker’s new Liquidations System upgrade to over 3,000 attendees. Watch his talk.

On October 24, Kathleen Chu, the Maker Foundation’s Community Lead in Japan, spoke at BlockChainJam2020, a popular annual event focused on the future of blockchain. Kathleen shared Dai use cases and her views on the future of DeFi.  

On October 27, Sahabia was back at it, introducing Maker and Dai to the audience at a BitcoinKe event titled Understanding the Maker Ecosystem.

On October 28, at the 12th session of Yasashi DeFi, Kathleen explained the concept of DAOs, including the three core pillars of a self-sustaining organization.  

Kathleen Chu explains how DAOs work.

At the EU Observatory and Forum on October 29, the Maker Foundation’s Global Legal Counsel Jacek Czarnecki participated in a roundtable discussion titled Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)—Do We Need Them? He and other panelists discussed stablecoins, including Dai; Euro-tied CBDCs; composability and interoperability; financial inclusion; and challenges cryptocurrency projects face when innovating.

On October 30, Sahabia participated in a discussion hosted by Bitcoin Events Africa called Realising the Transformational Power of Dai in African Economy.

On October 30, Gustav Arentoft joined the CryptoAssets Conference to present a talk titled MakerDAO and DAI: The Backbone of Decentralized Finance (DeFi).

To stay current on Maker Community meetings, bookmark our Community Playlist on YouTube.

Upcoming Events

See the Maker Events page for a list of the many events we sponsor, participate in, or plan to attend. 

Reminder: If you’re organizing a small event that incorporates Maker or Dai—whether it's a meetup, panel, talk, or workshop—we want to support you! Learn more about our global meetups and micro-grants initiative. 

The Maker Foundation Is Hiring!

The Maker Foundation is looking for awesome people to join our growing, hard-working, and overall badass team. Check out our open roles and reach out if you’re interested!

Learn more about MakerDAO:

Website: https://makerdao.com/

Blog: https://blog.makerdao.com

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/MakerDAO/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/makerdao