Making Maker: May 2020

May 29, 2020

May featured two significant announcements for the Maker community. First, on May 3, Maker Governance accepted WBTC (wrapped Bitcoin) as a new collateral asset in the Maker Protocol. The addition of WBTC means that Bitcoin holders can now turn their BTC into WBTC (bring Bitcoin to the Ethereum blockchain), and then use it to generate Dai. Then, on May 12, Maker’s Single-Collateral Dai (SCD) system was shut down. The event marked the end of an era for MakerDAO.

There’s a lot more to unwrap from the month, but first, let’s look at the numbers from daistats.com as of May 29, 2020, 9:30 am PT. 

Total Dai: 122,786,194.99 

Dai from ETH: 107,187,492.1 (87.3%)

Dai from BAT: 586,555.07 (0.48%)

Dai from USDC: 5,194,898.42 (4.23%)

Dai from WBTC: 9,485,556.79 (7.73%)

ETH Stability Fee: 0%

BAT Stability Fee: 0%

USDC Stability Fee: 0.75%

WBTC Stability Fee: 1.00%

Dai Savings Rate: 0%

Dai in DSR: 11,727,488.41 (9.59%)

Vaults Opened: 9575 

WBTC Approved as Collateral by Maker Governance; Generate Dai Now with Bitcoin

MKR holders have accepted WBTC (wrapped Bitcoin) as a new collateral asset in the Maker Protocol. WBTC will help bring greater liquidity to the Ethereum and DeFi ecosystems, and to decentralized exchanges. WBTC can now be used to open Maker Vaults in order to generate Dai.  

How Dai Became A Favorite Crypto in Latin America

For Latin Americans, the true safe-haven currency is the US Dollar. It’s not always easy to buy, though, which is where MakerDAO’s Dai stablecoin comes in. Dai, built on the Ethereum network and underpinned by a system of smart contracts and decentralized price feeds, is designed to maintain a soft-peg to the US dollar.

Shake Off Your Fear of Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency can be difficult to understand for newcomers, and that can cause fear. The good news, though, is with the Dai stablecoin, people everywhere, regardless of income or financial history, can discover the advantages of digital cash and push their fears aside.

How Dai Helps Meet the Needs of the Unbanked in America and Beyond

Dai is designed to help provide the unbanked population in the United States and abroad with the same opportunities banked persons enjoy, but without the third-party involvement.

The “Bailout” for Everyone Else—Maker and Dharma Partner to Stimulate the Meme Economy

Maker and Dharma partnered to offer Dai to struggling dank meme designers who created the coolest crypto memes over the course of a week.

One of the many crypto memes submitted for Dai in the Maker/Dharma “bailout.”

The Dai Backstop Syndicate: Decentralization at Work

The Dai Backstop Syndicate was an unprecedented community-driven initiative that proves grassroots and decentralized organizing can be highly effective in addressing the challenges of the sector and creating a more transparent financial system. 

Worth Repeating

A Guide to Dai Stats

The transparency of the blockchain means there’s a wealth of data just waiting for Dai users to explore. To examine that data all in one place, there’s no better resource than daistats.com. Discover the Guide to Dai Stats to unpack every Protocol metric on the page and explore the broader significance of each number.

The Top Use Cases and Benefits of the Dai Stablecoin

Every day, more and more people around the world discover the use cases and benefits of the Dai stablecoin. Here are the top 10.

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

Single-Collateral Dai (SC) Shutdown

On May 12, the spell to shutdown SCD was cast. It was an event the community had long been anticipating. 

The First Maker Improvement Proposals (MIPs) Ratification Vote Passes; Governance Cycle has Begun

The 13 initial Maker Improvement Proposals (MIPs) and 2 Subproposals have been ratified by Maker Governance voters. Learn what that means for Maker Governance, and what’s ahead.

This Month’s Series of Governance Polls and Executive Votes 

May resulted in changes to Stability Fees. Fees for both ETH and BAT remain at 0%,  while the USDC Stability Fee was lowered to .75%. The Stability Fee for WBTC is 1.0%. 

The Dai Savings Rate remains at 0%. These figures are as of May 29, 2020, 9:30 am PT.

Here’s the polling and voting history:

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 

Maker Foundation CEO Rune Christensen participated in the DeFi: Money Legos or House of Cards? panel at the Ready Layer One event in early May. He and others discussed the biggest risks and failures in DeFi, DeFi scalability, and the importance of community engagement and DAO governance participation. 

Maker’s Decentralized Governance Architect Charles St. Louis also attended Ready Layer One. He discussed the Foundation’s gradual decentralization efforts, introduced the Maker Improvement proposals (MIPs), and revealed plans surrounding creation of a self-sustaining DAO.

Both discussions should appear on the Ready Layer One YouTube page soon.

Rune shares his vision for DeFi and what needs to be done to scale it successfully.

A few days later, Rune took part in a fireside chat with The Block during the  Ethereal Virtual Summit 2020. He shared his vision on the future of DeFi and MakerDAO governance, and how best to increase Dai adoption. Watch below:

During Consensus: Distributed, May 11-15, Rune joined Samyak Jain, co-founder of Instadapp, to discuss the blockchain boom in India and encourage more people to get involved with DeFi. He shared success stories of utilizing Maker’s Community Development efforts to help projects like Instadapp get started. 

The Latest Integrations

RX Wallet, the official wallet for the RiveX ecosystem, now supports DAI.

Dai can now be used to purchase an uncensorable blockchain domain through Unstoppable Domains.

Dai is now listed on the BlockChing instant Telegram wallet.


Decentral Games now offers Tominoya NFTs for sale in Dai, and will soon include the stablecoin as a game wager option.

MoonPay now offers developer tools and a simple checkout interface for purchasing Dai with a debit or credit card, or a bank wire. 

Dai is now accepted as payment for digital artwork across the Blockchain Art Exchange.

Community Highlights and Event Recaps

In early May, three Maker Foundation employees sat on panels during DeFi Discussions presented by DystopiaLabs. Nik Kunkel, Maker’s Head of Backend Services, joined Luke Youngblood of Coinbase in a deep-dive discussion on the best practices for DeFi Oracles. Rewatch the session to learn about Maker Oracle history, DeFi applications, changes in Multi-Collateral Dai,  and more.

Gustav Arentoft of our Business Development team moderated a panel with Lea Schmidt (Centrifuge) and Joao Reginato (USDC) on the importance of bringing real-world assets into the DeFi space. Gustav provided an update on Maker Protocol collateral and recapped how USDC was onboarded.

Last but not least, Charles St. Louis joined a governance panel in which he discussed MakerDAOs approach toward full decentralization.


Charles St. Louis discussing the future of Maker governance.

On May 7,  Maria Magenes, Maker’s Community Lead in Europe, spoke to members of DeFi Africa about the concept and benefits of DeFi. Maria was invited to the very first meeting of the group by Sahabia, our ambassador in Ghana.

Maker ambassador Sahabia introduces Maria Magenes at the inaugural DeFi Africa community meetup. 

At the Ethereal Virtual Summit 2020, Mariano Conti, Head of Smart Contracts at the Maker Foundation, presented Living on DeFi: How We Fight Back— his personal story about living on Dai in Argentina. Watch now:

A few days later, Mariano spoke at Consensus: Distributed on a panel titled, DeFi Against Censorship and Tyranny. He discussed the greater purpose DeFi serves: circumventing authoritarian governments and capital controls to store and grow wealth. Watch his talk here.  

Also at Consensus: Distributed, Maker’s Head of Business Development Greg Diprisco presented Don't Bank on the Banks: Borrowing and Saving with Crypto. He introduced DeFi using some great analogies, performed a live demo of Oasis.app, including step-by-step instructions on how to lock collateral, generate Dai, trade on Oasis, and save Dai. He ended his presentation by airdropping Dai to interested attendees, using Dharma’s new Social Payments feature that allows payments via Twitter.   

Greg Diprisco offering his take on DeFi and its value to the user.

On  May 12, Maria Magenes spoke about DeFi and Maker at Maratona Halving Live, presented by the Young Platform. Young used the occasion of Bitcoin halving to talk about DeFi, blockchain interoperability, and the role of Maker to Italy’s Bitcoin audience. 

During Blockchain Week New York (May 7-13), the Disrupt Network hosted a panel discussion titled, Bridging Real-World Assets to DeFi. Maker’s Gustav Arentoft joined others in discussing how real-world assets can be tokenized and used to scale DeFi.   

At the virtual Crypto Asia Summit on May 18, Maker’s Community Lead in Japan Kathleen Chu introduced Dai as an unbiased global currency, and discussed how she envisions the future of money.

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Maker’s Kathleen Chu presenting at the Crypto Asia Summit.

Jocelyn Chang, Maker’s Community Lead in Southeast Asia, presented DeFi use cases to a group of students at the PoyFintech100 Hackathon on May 19. The students were asked to develop fintech prototypes to address real-world problems using open APIs from the industry. Decentralized Finance was one of the seven categories featured at the event hosted by the Singapore Blockchain Association.

On May 21, Kathleen Chu introduced daistats.com to Yasashi DeFi, an educational group that meets monthly in Tokyo. The group learned about  “locking up” their crypto assets in DeFi, and how it creates value in the DeFi and Maker ecosystems in the process.  

Yasashi DeFi co-organizer Taisuke Horitsugi from Kyber Network provides an introduction of value locked in DeFi.

On May 23, Doo Wan Nam, Maker’s Business Development Associate in the Asia-Pacific region, spoke to postgraduate students at Kookmin University in South Korea. He introduced the Maker Protocol and demonstrated how, thanks to the composability of the Protocol, the Dai stablecoin works within decentralized applications in the DeFi ecosystem.

Doo introduces the Maker Protocol and Dai to students at Kookmin University in South Korea.

Finally, be sure to follow Maker’s @mariamagenes1 on Twitter to learn about her all new FriDAI Brunch, coming on June 5. Tune in to hear diverse opinions from fresh faces in the Maker community. 

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

Upcoming Events

June 1-3, 2020: Mainnet Virtual

June 1-5, 2020  Southeast Asia DeFi Week (Livestream)

June 2: bacOpenWebinar

June 8: Fintech and the New Normal  (Webinar Series)

June 15-29: Gitcoin Protect Privacy Virtual Hackathon

June 24-26: Remote Crypto Con

Sept. 15-16: Copenhagen Fintech Week 2020 (Virtual)

Sept. 22-24: Money 20/20 Europe 2020—Amsterdam, Netherlands

Dec. 9-10: Paris Blockchain Week Summit

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!

In the meantime, stay home and stay healthy!

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 29, 2020

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