MakerDAO Governance Confirms Sky Rebrand Will Go Ahead

MakerDAO’s governance delegates have voted to proceed with its Sky rebrand.

On Nov. 7, a governance proposal weighing up different options for managing the protocol’s brand identity closed. More than 79.3% of votes were cast in support of pursuing the current plan to transition from MakerDAO to Sky as the brand identity for the protocol and its backend.

Nearly 18.5% of votes backed the idea of recentering the MakerDAO branding with a “limited brand refresh,” while just 2.2% supported a full revert back to the old MakerDAO identity. Voting commenced on Nov. 4.

“Now that the Sky branding is upheld, Sky Ecosystem can focus on getting to work,” Rune Christensen, the co-founder of Sky, tweeted. “Sky stays as the brand for the backend protocol powering USDS — the stablecoin with access to native token rewards and savings rate.”

The vote follows the project completing its adoption of Sky as a brand identity with the launch of its Sky.money web app on Sept. 18, which replaced its previous MakerDAO dApp. The project also launched the new SKY governance token and USDS stablecoin. Users can migrate to the new tokens from MKR and DAI.

However, on Oct. 21, Christensen announced he would soon post a governance proposal exploring different options for managing the project’s brand identity moving forward. Christensen said the rebrand had caused confusion within the community, with many users expressing a strong affinity for its longstanding MakerDAO brand.

Next steps

Moving forward, Christensen will launch a governance proposal on Nov. 11 to “clarify tokenomics and other key questions.”

The measures under consideration include changing SKY’s tokenomics to a “strictly deflationary” model, and provisions intended to encourage MRK holders to migrate their tokens to SKY. Voting will commence on Nov. 11 and conclude on Nov. 14.

Christensen also published a draft proposal recommending tokenomics for Spark, Sky’s lending protocol. Should the proposal attract support, SPK’s supply would be limited to 10 billion, with 1 billion allocated to liquidity and 1 billion to early contributors. The remaining 8 billion SPK would be earmarked for USDS and SKY holders.