Maker [MKR] Rebrands to ‘Sky’ to Boost Usage, Drops Double-Digits After the Move

Maker [MKR], founded in 2014 and one of the pioneers of lending in the DeFi space running on the Ethereum [ETH] chain, has rebranded to ‘Sky’

DeFi lending pioneer Maker [MKR], which has been around since 2014, has rebranded to ‘Sky’ in a bid to boost usage of its products.

The Maker ecosystem currently features its native MKR governance token and the decentralized stablecoin Dai [DAI]. The two tokens have seen extensive use over the last decade.

Now, the rebrand will introduce key upgrades, including a new stablecoin (USDS) and governance token (SKY).

‘Existing DAI and MKR tokens will remain unchanged and holders will be able to exchange DAI tokens 1:1 for USDS, and one MKR token can be swapped for 28,000 SKY tokens. SKY and USDS will be available to trade on September 18th. What an interesting move on their part.’

Reacting to the rebranding, Uniswap [UNI] founder Hayden Adams had this to say about MKR and DAI use on his DEX.

‘End of an era. MKR and DAI were two of the very first tokens to get traction on Uniswap v1’

However, other market commentators saw the move as the ‘end of an era’ and death for Maker’s dominance. One commentator, Millie, had this to say about Maker’s move,

‘By the time any of it plays out DAI will have lost its entire moat and will be entirely replaced by much more reliable alternatives (even things like USDC are better in this case). The end of an era of dominance.’

To provide some context, most of the contention has been linked to the new stablecoin USDS, which is designed with a freeze function like the centralized stablecoins USDC and USDT. In short, users of USDS can be censored.

Another user had this to say about DAI’s fate, following the rebrand.

‘DAI is now migrating to USDS, a censorable stablecoin that goes against its original vision. RIP DAI, 2017-2024.’

However, Maker co-founder Rune Christensen clarified that the upgrade from DAI to USDS will be optional and that only the latter has a freeze function.

‘This is misleading, as Dai will continue to function just as before, and can still be used. Upgrading to USDS is optional, and it is only USDS that will have a freeze function. Dai is an immutable smart contract and cannot be altered.’

To provide some context, Maker proposed this dual stablecoin approach back in May to ensure mass adoption and regulatory compliance. But, the end goal was eventually to retire DAI after the mass adoption of USDS and ‘PureDai’. A part of the May update read,

‘Eventually, after multiple years, it is expected that Dai will be fully deprecated as all users and integrations migrate to either NewStable (USDS) or PureDai. The timeline for when this happens will depend on how quickly the ecosystem adopts NewStable (USDS) and PureDai’

MKR drops double-digits After the rebrand on Wednesday, MKR tanked 12%, moving from $2.1k to $1.9k at press time. The drop could also be linked to Bitcoin [BTC] losses.

But, it remains to be seen how MKR’s price will react to the rebrand in the short term.