- The founder of MakerDAO, Rune Christensen, first got into stablecoins after realising that Bitcoin’s volatility would make it unsuitable for matters like daily uses and payments.
- Christensen started the Maker project in 2015 after looking into many different stablecoins. He and his co-founders then went on to build MakerDAO on the Ethereum — making this the team’s oldest Ethereum-based project to date.
- Due to the volatility of Bitcoin, it is often used for speculation but not as money. This is where stablecoins come in. Stablecoins offer all of the benefits of a blockchain — fast, cheap, secure and decentralised — while also providing the benefits and familiarity of traditional banking currency. This includes the ability to earn stable and reliable interest rates.
- Dai is a stablecoin that MakerDAO maintains and regulates, soft-pegged to the US dollar. It is resistant to hyperinflation, making it less volatile and provides economic freedom and opportunity to anyone regardless of location.
- The Maker Protocol (AKA Multi-Collateral Dai system or MCD for short) enables users to generate Dai by leveraging collateral assets approved by Maker Governance — a community of MKR holders responsible for governing the protocol. MKR is the governance token of MakerDAO.
- The MKR holders’ governance of the Maker Protocol includes Dai policy adjustment, addition of new collateral types, and the improvement of governance itself.
- MakerDAO allows permissionless access, which means anyone in the world can access financial tools like lending and savings accounts by just sending some of their Ethereum or other collateral into a MAKER vault. This will then generate Dai in a form of loan.
