Making Maker: April 2019

May 2, 2019

A lot happened here at MakerDAO and across our partnership landscape in April, which means a packed Making Maker. But before we dive into all of the updates, here’s a look at the latest statistics from mkr.tools.

  • 2,039,313 ETH locked up
  • 1.9259% of the entire ETH supply is locked up in Maker smart contracts
  • 84,133,879 total Dai supply

Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD) Closer to Reality

The road to MCD is getting shorter! On April 10, we announced the release of MCD v0.2.3 on the Kovan Testnet. Two weeks later, on April 24, we announced the release of MCD v0.2.4, which features the newest development updates within the MCD CDP portal, Dai.js, and new contract addresses.


Maker Leaders Talk Blockchain and DeFi

Maker co-founder and CEO Rune Christiansen talked to Underscore VC co-founder and Partner Richard Dulude about the future of blockchain and the role MakerDAO will play in it. Watch the full interview.

The DeFi discussion is becoming more and more important as crypto organizations take on well-known social finance companies. In a recent Forbes article, How Leading Crypto Firms, DeFi Institutions, And Fintechs Build Different Types Of Communities, Maker COO Steven Becker describes DeFi as having social impact embedded in its DNA.

Speaking of DeFi, just days after the piece featuring Steven Becker, Dai was highlighted again in another Forbes article, Why Everyone In Crypto Is Talking About DeFi. Stablecoins are dominating the DeFi conversation.


Upgrades to the Maker Ecosystem Foundation Structure  

Due to our rapid growth and the number of projects building on top of MakerDAO, it’s become clear that the Maker Ecosystem Growth Foundation (MEGF) board requires expertise beyond the ability to evaluate technical contributions and maintain the security of the foundation’s development funds. Because of this, we are looking to reconstitute the MEGF board in a way that will not only ensure the representation of a decentralized community of stakeholders (including technical contributors and security experts), but also borrow elements from traditional board structures, including independent directors. Read more.


Governance Updates

Stability Fee Increases through Governance Votes

A series of Governance votes this month resulted in an overall stability fee increase to 16.5%. Increases were driven by the following factors:

  • Exchange price persisting below $1
  • High inventory levels among market makers and prop desks
  • Insufficient impact from the previous Stability Fee increases

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.


Collaboration and Partnership Highlights

Maker is collaborating on South Korean local government projects with VANTA network and HYCON (Glosfer). We play an important role, as service providers like VANTA can swap received local cryptocurrencies with Dai, thereby reducing risk from significant volatility in price.

Our partnership with NeedsList continues to help provide disaster aid. Since October, numerous Dai donations have helped purchase urgently needed supplies for Hurricane Florence victims.  

Guesser, an organization out to make prediction markets simpler, has partnered with Version One, Compound, and Boost VC through a $1.1M investment round. Boost’s investment represents the first ever venture capital deal done using Dai.

MKR is now available to trade on Coinbase Pro (in all Coinbase Pro-supported jurisdictions outside the US). Keep tabs on the plan as Coinbase Pro moves forward.

April Events Recap

MakerDAO’s Doo Wan Nam, our amazing community leader in Korea, hosted an exclusive meetup at Hashed Lounge in Seoul on April 3. Doo presented an overview of MakerDAO, which included several use cases, to 150 VIPs representing various projects in the region.

Blockchain Week Africa

Maker stood out at Blockchain Week ZA in Cape Town, South Africa, in mid-April. MakerDAO team members led workshops, gave presentations, and hosted a DeFi event focused on decentralised financial inclusion.  


The Latest Dai Integrations

  • Dai is now integrated into the Origin protocol, allowing anyone to buy and sell items on any Origin-powered marketplace. Pricing and purchasing both goods and services just got a whole lot easier for users!

  • IKU worked with MakerDAO to integrate Dai in order to create the first IKU NeuroDAO tasked to stop #Alzheimers and neurodegenerative disease!  
  • Dai has been integrated into FomoHunt, a discovery platform for crypto and blockchain events, as a supported method of payment. FomoHunt’s newly-launched API enables organization and distribution of community events worldwide. Maker is one of the first with access to this new tool.

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

May 2, 2019