Making Maker: June 2021
July 1, 2021
Making Maker: February 2020
February 28, 2020
February was pretty darn amazing for Maker and for the community as a whole. From hitting a huge decentralized finance (DeFi) milestone (hint: it starts with a “B” and ends with “illion”) and Maker’s debut in the Forbes Fintech 50 to the release of the new white paper and Dai integration in Coinbase Commerce, ….. More news below, including Governance updates, new integrations, and event highlights, but let’s first look at the numbers from Daistats.com as of Feb. 28, 2020, 10:00 am PT.
Total Dai: 119,532,281.89
Dai from ETH: 111,984,528.58 (93.69%)
Dai from BAT: 1,743,682.75 (1.46%)
ETH Stability Fee: 8%
BAT Stability Fee: 8%
Dai Savings Rate : 8%
Dai in DSR: 66,658,892.04 (55.77%)
Vaults Opened: 6165
A Huge Milestone Hit
On Feb. 6, DeFi Pulse tracked $1 billion in total value locked in DeFi. And that’s only the beginning!
Maker Joins Org on a Mission to Help Blockchain Networks Thrive in the United States
The DeFi movement has the potential to open doors to the millions of people who currently fall outside the traditional financial system. To help accelerate the pace of DeFi awareness, the Maker Foundation recently joined Blockchain Association, a group of industry leaders advocating to support blockchain innovation and collaboration. Foundation members look forward to working with those leaders to help more people understand the benefits and transformative power of DeFi.
Dai Integrated as a Payment Option on Coinbase Commerce
Coinbase Commerce, a popular platform that helps merchants accept cryptocurrency payments in a completely decentralized way, has integrated Dai as a payment method. Merchants around the world can now accept Dai as a payment for goods and services in minutes.
Maker Debuts in the Forbes Fintech 50
The real world is catching on to what the Maker community already knows to be true: MakerDAO is one of the most innovative fintech companies in 2020.
New White Paper Describes the Multi-Collateral Dai System and the New Features of the Maker Protocol
As more people become comfortable with cryptocurrency and discover the benefits of Dai, the more important it is to communicate in simple language the benefits of the stablecoin and the advantages of all the new attributes of the Maker Protocol. Much more reader-friendly than the original white paper, the new version aims to clearly answer the questions people unfamiliar with crypto and the blockchain might have.
Catch Up On the Welcome to Crypto Blog Series
The six-part Welcome to Crypto series is now complete. If you missed any of the installments, catching up is easy. Click away!:
Part 1: The Benefits of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology
Part 2: How Does Cryptocurrency Have Value, and Why Should I Care?
Part 3: The Different Types of Cryptocurrency Tokens Explained
Part 4: A Guide to Crypto Wallet Types
Part 5: How to Buy Cryptocurrency: A Step-By-Step Tutorial
Part 6: How to Read Cryptocurrency Price Charts, and Why They Matter
Explore Apps and Services Using Dai
In case you missed it, a new Ecosystem page on MakerDAO.com was unveiled last month. The page contains links to all of the dapps designed by Maker, as well as links to the many Dai-integrated projects created by the Maker community.
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
A series of Governance Polls and Executive Votes this month resulted in no change to the Stability Fees for ETH and BAT (both still at 8%), but brought the Dai Savings Rate up to 8%, as of February 28, 10:00 am PT.
Here’s the polling and voting history:
- Feb. 28: Executive Vote: Activate the Debt Ceiling Adjustments and Set the Dai Savings Rate Spread
- Feb. 24: Governance Polls: Adjustments to Dai Stability Fee, DSR Spread, Debt Ceiling, Sai Stability Fee, and Reducing the frequency of DSR Spread
- Feb. 21: Executive Vote: Activate the Dai Debt Ceiling Adjustment, Set Dai Savings Rate Spread, Set Sai Stability, Lower Surplus Auction Bid, Set Governance Delay Module
- Feb. 17: Governance Polls: Adjustments to DSR Spread, Dai Stability Fee, Debt Ceiling, Sai Stability Fee, and Surplus Auction
- Feb. 14: Executive Vote: Activate the Sai Debt Ceiling Adjustment and Suspend Monetary Policy Votes for Technical Fixes
- Feb. 10: Governance Polls: DSR Spread Adjustment, Dai Stability Fee Adjustment, Sai Stability Fee Adjustment, and more
- Feb. 7: Executive Vote: Activate the Savings Rate Spread and the Sai and Dai Stability Fee Adjustments
- Feb. 3: Governance Polls: DSR Spread Adjustment, Dai Stability Fee Adjustment, Sai Stability Fee Adjustment
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.
The Latest Integrations
Say Hello to DAInerys Vaultborn: We’ve partnered with Kriptomat and Forgotten Artifacts to create a new collaborative gaming experience featuring DAInerys Vaultborn, our all-new NFT hero. Only 1000 DAInerys tokens will be minted, each one with a unique blockchain-certified identity. Don’t miss out!
Dai has been added as a new cryptocurrency to the Sandbox marketplace. Sandbox will be a virtual world in which individual players and companies can create content and experiences for others. The collaboration will mean the creation of a new gaming land parcel — “Dai City”— dedicated to the token and Maker. The city will also serve as a social hub for the Maker community.
F1DeltaTime, a blockchain-based game that centers around the collection and trading of unique cars, drivers, and more, now accepts Dai.
Maker’s partnership with Pundi X to increase Dai adoption and financial inclusion in Latin American countries continues. On February 17, the Crypto Merchant program launched, allowing qualified merchants to receive a free XPOS® device to empower their businesses with digital currency transactions.
With PayTrie, our Canadian friends can earn the Dai Savings Rate through the Argent Wallet in under two minutes.
Ownbit has improved cold wallet and multisig support for Dai. The Ownbit merchant API helps merchants accept Dai payments.
GrowFI has integrated Dai into its first project, Growdrop, a new, no-loss funding model through which open-source projects can get seed funding and form a community of supporters. Dai not only provides the project with more options, but also helps to expand the Dai ecosystem.
Dai is now integrated on the instars.com platform. Users anywhere in the world can participate in market research surveys and more, and receive Dai as payment.
Worth Repeating
The Dai Savings Rate is now live in the Argent ethereum wallet. Argent’s UI makes it ridiculously simple to earn savings on your Dai.
Maker at ETHDenver (Feb 14-16)
The Maker team met a ton of people at ETHDenver 2020, including many Maker community members. Two Maker grantees, PoolTogether and Kickback, joined us at the booth to endorse the Maker Grant Program and turn visitors on to their projects.
Donations from Maker Swag Sales
We raised over $1000 Buffidai from swag sales during the three-day event. Buyers donated the full value of their purchases to one or all of four charities. Our partnership with Splunk allowed for a live data dashboard, which displayed the sales and fundraising efforts in real time at the booth.
The final donations tally:
- 135 unique donors
- $1077.18 Buffidai donated
- $309 to Giveth
- $281 to Heifer International
- $282 to Grace Refugee Aide
- $203 to Castro Limon
Also at ETHDenver, Maker’s Head of Smart Contracts, Mariano Conti, hit the stage and talked about Multi-Collateral Dai, its risks, and what Maker is doing to mitigate them. Watch the video (begin at 3:24:00):
Not unlike 2019, the ETHDenver project submissions for this year’s event came in hot and heavy. Check out all of the 2020 Project Submissions, courtesy of ETHDenver.
Other Community Highlights and Event Recaps
On February 4, Biz Dev reps Jocelyn Chang and Gustav Arentoft were in Singapore speaking to senior leaders of the Asian Development Bank, as well as industry partners and members of the fintech startup community. The conversation focused on Maker and the emerging technologies that are innovating corporate finance and the risk management field.
On Feb. 7, Nik Kunkel, Maker’s Head of Backend Services, attended Oxpo in San Francisco. Hosted by Ox, Oxpo brought together many of the major players in DeFi. Nik discussed the state of DeFi on a panel with Compound’s Robert Leshner and Kartik Talwar from A Capital. Matteo Leibowitz from The Block moderated.
On Feb. 20, Maker attended NFT NYC and left a present in the swag bags of attendees: A token that entitles them to 5 Dai off of their next OpenSea purchase. NFTs are promising to play important roles in the crypto economy.
Nik Kunkel was back at it on Feb 25, speaking at an intimate invite-only event hosted by Polychain and Cross Chain Group in San Francisco: Scaling DeFi: Where Interoperability Can Take Us. Nik and representatives from Dragonfly, Set Protocol, and Compound discussed the current state of DeFi and how it might evolve.
Also on Feb. 25, Gustav found himself in London speaking to Tech London Advocates Blockchain about the rise of DeFi, stablecoins, and the associated technologies.
To stay current on Maker Community meetings, bookmark our Community Playlist on Youtube.
Upcoming Events
Mar 3-5: ETHCC 2020 — Paris, France
Mar 4-11: London Blockchain Week — London, United Kingdom
Mar 9 & 10: Crypto Asset Conference — Frankfurt, Germany
Mar 10: CryptoCompare Digital Asset Summit — London, United Kingdom
Mar. 12-13: Blockchain Summit LATAM, Panama City, Panama
Mar. 18-19: World Blockchain Summit, Jakarta, Indonesia
May 8-9: Ethereal Summit New York 2020— New York, United States
June 16-18: Money 20/20 Europe 2020 — Amsterdam, Netherlands
To see more events we sponsor, participate in, or plan to attend, head to our Events page, and bookmark it!
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