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MakerDAO founder Rune Christensen planned to make the MakerDAO Foundation obsolete by end-2021. It may take a bit longer but recent moves suggest the organization really is serious about shutting down. First, it turned control of the supply of undistributed governance tokens, MKR, over to MKR holders at large. Then Christensen detailed a three-plank plan that would get community governance to the point where MakerDAO users wouldn't even notice when the foundation shuts its doors.

MakerDAO, built on the ETH network, has hastily called for a community vote on March 13 ahead of the project's first-ever Debt Auction. According to Maker, the vote will decide on needed modifications that were identified during the fallout from the recent crypto market bloodbath. MakerDAO is the DeFi protocol that creates the DAI stablecoin.

"MakerDAO token holders have again voted to increase fees charged to those taking out programmatic loans on the blockchain through its U.S. dollar-backed ethereum stablecoin DAI. The fourth and largest fee hike to the DAI "Stability Fee," users who take out loans with MakerDAO to generate new DAI will soon be required to pay a 7.5 percent fee when closing out the loan."

Launched in December 2017 as an ERC-20 token, MakerDAO is pegged 1:1 with the United States dollar, with its peg being maintained via over-collateralization with ether (ETH). In other words, users receive the equivalent of $1 in DAI by depositing more than $1 in ETH, and they can later reclaim their collateral by repaying the DAI they've received plus a "stability fee" in MKR, MakerDAO's other (nonstablecoin) token. By charging users this additional fee, the MakerDAO system theoretically prevents the value of DAI from dropping below $1, since the fee makes it expensive to mint more DAI tokens.

Decentralized lending and borrowing protocol Aave has taken the number one slot in total value locked (TVL), snatching that position from MakerDAO. Aave's TVL, or the total amount of crypto-assets deposited into the protocol for lending and borrowing purposes, is now $1.45 billion, according to tracker DeFi Pulse. Aave is the second project to beat MakerDAO in TVL. On June 20, Compound overtook the DAI stablecoin issuer, with about $500 million in TVL at the time as compared to MakerDAO's $486 million. The yield farming craze in recent weeks has shot up the TVL of almost all DeFi protocols, to currently stand at over $6.9 billion. In February, that amount was only $1 billion.

It appears that the auction has helped MakerDAO to achieve its objective. Over 4.3 million DAI stablecoins have been raised to cover the bad debt across a total of 86 auctions. However, because it was formatted as a reverse auction in which all bids were a fixed 50,000 DAI, participants "bid" by lowering the number of MKR tokens they would accept.

MakerDAO is now allowing the centralized USDC stablecoin to be used as collateral for loans after last week's ethereum crash. The platform was left with under-collateralized debt worth millions of dollars after ether (ETH) fell by 30% in 24 hours on "Black Thursday."

MakerDAO has been holding crisis talks after dramatic falls in the price of Ether left debt worth about $4 million under-collateralized. At one point, the platform was considering an emergency shutdown as the full impact of "Black Thursday" became clear-with ETH falling by 30% in a 24-hour period.

MakerDAO has added a third asset to its decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, USD Coin (USDC), in response to the system's flagship stablecoin, dai, continuing to float above its dollar peg.

The MakerDAO (MKR) community has locked in a March 19 auction to cover a multi-million dollar hole in DAI collateral after the sudden Ethereum (ETH) price crash on March 12. The system will auction newly minted MKR in exchange for DAI. The proceeds from the sale will be used to recapitalize the system and compensate the losses suffered by the borrowers who saw their Ethereum collateral auctioned off for zero DAI. As the stablecoin powers many decentralized finance applications, the stability of Maker is paramount for the entire ecosystem.

Bidders have already committed to buying Maker (MKR) tokens for a total of $2 million in Dai (DAI) as the first phase of the MakerDAO debt auction reaches its final stages. The majority of the current winning bids were placed at around 1:25 a.m. EST, March 20, so unless further bids come in, most of the lots will be sold at around 7:25 a.m. EST."

Decentralized lending and stablecoin protocol MakerDAO has opened governance voting to allow new tokens as collateral.

MakerDAO is a protocol behind the stable coin DAI - a cryptocurrency that maintains a 1:1 peg to the USD. Think of 1 DAI as $1. What makes it unique is each DAI is backed by Ether instead of a 3rd party claiming to have the required collateral. Since Ether is volatile this poses some interesting challenges to maintain the peg.

MakerDAO is in the process of voting on whether to further diversify the collateral it accepts for loans beyond crypto-assets and tokens to include real-world assets. Specifically, Maker would also allow supply chain invoices and musicians' future royalty streams as security when it lends out DAI. These assets would be represented on the Ethereum blockchain by non-fungible tokens, the innovation that spawned CryptoKitties. Small businesses and artists could take the borrowed DAI, which usually trades 1-for-1 with the U.S. dollar, to crypto exchanges like Coinbase and convert it to cash.

MakerDAO's latest spike comes amid a community vote showing strong support for supporting non-crypto-native assets as collateral for the creation of DAI. Currently, MakerDAO users can lock up Ether, Wrapped Bitcoin, Basic Attention Tokens, or the stablecoin USD Coin to fund DAI loans. The vote signaled support for a protocol developed by blockchain startup Centrifuge that would allow "real-world assets" to be tokenized as ERC-20-based securities that can be used as collateral for DAI minting.

"This paper discusses a decentralized finance (DeFi) application called MakerDAO. The Maker Protocol, built on the Ethereum blockchain, enables users to create and hold currency. Current elements of the Maker Protocol are the Dai stable coin, Maker Vaults, and Voting. MakerDAO governs the Maker Protocol by deciding on key parameters (e.g., stability fees, collateral types and rates, etc.) through the voting power of Maker (MKR) holders. The Maker Protocol is one of the largest decentralized applications (DApps) on the Ethereum blockchain and is the first decentralized finance (DeFi) application to earn significant adoption. The objective of this paper is to analyze and discuss the significance, uses, and functions of this DeFi application."

"If a decentralized blockchain protocol is worried about being shut down by the authorities, how can it defend itself? A recent discussion surrounding MakerDAO explores this question. MakerDAO (or just Maker) issues the Dai stablecoin, of which there are around $7 billion in circulation. Rune Christensen, the founder of Maker, sees a precedent for a clampdown on Maker in the US Treasury's recent sanctions on Tornado Cash, a mixer. He worries that the authorities may try to shut down Maker by seizing its assets, specifically its real-world assets, or "RWA." To counter this threat, Christensen suggests that Maker turtle into what he calls phoenix stance:"

"Since February, MKR holders have agreed on three different raises of Dai's "stability fees," which are essentially interest rates people have to pay for borrowing Dai. First came two separate fee hikes of 0.5 percent. When those didn't work, the community enacted an additional 2.5 percent increase. That didn't quite stabilize Dai either, so the MakerDAO community is currently debating adding another two percent to the coin's borrowing rate."

A majority vote to increase fees on programmatic lending platform MakerDAO has passed an initial round of polling today. This time, the winning vote is to increase fees by 2%, which, in comparison to past weeks, is a comparatively small increase to the usual 3 or 4%.

For the first time in five months, MakerDAO token holders have voted to decrease fees on all DAI loans. DAI is a dollar-pegged stablecoin operating on the ethereum blockchain backed by nearly 2 million ether tokens.