Sky To Consider Reverting Back To MakerDAO Branding

Sky, the largest collateralized debt protocol formerly known as MakerDAO, is reconsidering its recent rebrand.

On Oct 21, Rune Christensen, the co-founder of Sky, announced that the project will soon launch governance proposals allowing Sky’s community to vote on how to manage the project’s branding moving forward.

Christensen noted community feedback expressing confusion regarding the project’s recent rebranding of its protocol, token, and front-end to Sky.

“It is also now more clear than ever just how much the DeFi community loves and trusts the Maker brand,” Christensen tweeted. “There was a lot of affinity for the brand and what it stands for - stability, security, and DeFi scale. And there is a lot of commitment to holding the MKR token versus upgrading to SKY.”

Sky rebranded from MakerDAO on MakerDAO on Aug. 27, and followed up with the launch of the Sky front-end, SKY governance token, and USDS stablecoin on Sept. 18. Sky’s existing governance token MKR and stablecoin DAI continue to operate, with the Sky dApp offering yield incentives to entice holders to migrate their assets over to the new tokens.

Branding proposals

Christensen will soon launch a series of governance proposals allowing tokenholders to vote on how the project should best proceed with its branding moving forward.

One proposal would advocate for continuing to use the Sky branding and proceeding with its current roadmap. The project would also continue encouraging users to migrate MKR to its new SKY governance token.

An alternative proposal would create distinct roles for Maker and Sky within the project’s ecosystem. Maker would comprise the protocol powering the USDS and DAI stablecoins and its subDAO ecosystem, while MKR would comprise its sole governance token. Sky would operate a front-end interface for interacting with Maker, and oversee savings products for its stablecoins.

A third option would similarly recenter Maker as the project’s core branding, but with a “refreshed” identity seeking to better align it with its freshly launched USDS stablecoin and StarDAO ecosystem.

Sky will host a community call to discuss the proposals on Oct. 25. Christensen said he will publish a preliminary proposal outlining the different plans on Oct. 28 after incorporating community feedback. If the proposal is approved, the community will begin voting on a multiple-choice poll on Nov. 4.

Christensen said the project will consider whether to change its tokenomics if the community elects to alter the brand identity, especially if MKR becomes the sole governance token moving forward.

“It is critical that no users, or token holders, are unfairly treated or have their user experience unexpectedly change,” Christensen said. "Users that have received SKY Token Rewards should ofcourse end up with core protocol tokens, as they expected."

Recent growth

Christensen noted that Sky has enjoyed strong growth following its rebrand, with the supply of USDS exceeding 1 billion two weeks after its launch.

Christensen said the majority of USDS’s growth can be chalked up to new users, with USDS and DAI boasting combined inflows of $700 million since USDS went live. The supply of DAI has held its position as the third-largest stablecoin with a roughly $4.7 billion market cap.

The Sky front-end also hosted 400,000 visits during its first month.

Looking ahead, the project also plans to deploy USDS across major Ethereum Layer 2 networks and Solana to promote adoption from third-party DeFi protocols.

The price of MKR is down 1.4% over the past 24 hours, according to The Defiant’s crypto price feeds.