MakerDAO is Now Sky: USDS, SKY, and Endgame Explained (2026)

TL;DR

• On August 27, 2024 MakerDAO — DeFi's longest-running protocol, founded by Rune Christensen in 2014 — rebranded to Sky. The rebrand is the visible Phase-1 execution of Christensen's Endgame Plan, a 700-page restructuring proposed in May 2022.
• USDS is Sky's new $1-pegged stablecoin, fungible 1:1 with DAI through a permanent, no-fee Upgrade Hub. By April 2026 USDS supply has grown to roughly $9 billion while DAI has fallen to about $3 billion as users migrate. SKY is the new governance token, swappable from MKR at 24,000:1 (opt-in, one-way, never forced).
• The protocol now operates as a Star System of SubDAOs — independent product organisations sharing Sky's liquidity layer. SubDAO #1 is Spark (Aave v3 fork + Spark Savings + Spark Liquidity Layer + SPK token), already over $5-6B TVL. Future SubDAOs include Star Sky (NewChain), Grove and others — each with its own SubDAO token.
• Real-world assets back over 50% of USDS/DAI — short-duration US Treasury exposure through Monetalis Clydesdale, BlockTower Andromeda, BlockTower Star, Centrifuge pools and BlackRock's BUIDL. The on-chain RWA exposure exceeds $2 billion. Combined with the Sky Savings Rate (SSR) paying 4-9% APY, Sky is the largest direct competitor to bank deposits anywhere in DeFi.

Table of contents

• What is Sky / MakerDAO? (definition)
• Who founded MakerDAO? Rune Christensen
• The Aug 27, 2024 Sky rebrand
• USDS replaces DAI (1:1 swap)
• SKY replaces MKR (24,000:1, optional)
• The Endgame Plan: thesis and phases
• SubDAOs and the Star System
• Spark: SubDAO #1
• Atlas and Sky governance
• RWA backing: 50%+ of collateral
• Sky Savings Rate (SSR) and the legacy DSR
• USDS Direct Deposit Module (DDM)
• Tokenized treasury collateral and Centrifuge
• TVL, supply and market data in 2026
• How USDS works (mechanics)
• Why the rebrand (Endgame thesis)
• Future SubDAOs
• Risks and criticism
• How to use Sky (step-by-step)
• ELI5: MakerDAO and Sky in plain English
• Sky vs Liquity vs Curve crvUSD vs Aave GHO
• Research and reports
• FAQ
• Glossary

What is Sky / MakerDAO? (definition)

Sky is the new brand of MakerDAO, the longest-running protocol in decentralized finance and the original issuer of DAI, DeFi's foundational over-collateralized stablecoin. As of August 27, 2024 the project, its core team and its on-chain primitives operate under the Sky brand; DAI continues to exist and to function exactly as before, but the protocol's flagship stablecoin going forward is USDS (1:1 with DAI), the flagship governance token is SKY (re-denominated from MKR at 24,000:1), and the organisation is restructured into a Star System of SubDAOs executing the long-running Endgame Plan authored by founder Rune Christensen.

In one sentence: Sky is the same Maker Protocol — same CDPs, same liquidations, same RWA-heavy balance sheet — under a new brand, a refreshed token economy, and a SubDAO-based product structure designed to scale beyond a monolithic DAO.

The protocol holds a combined $12+ billion balance sheet spanning crypto-collateral CDPs (ETH, stETH, WBTC, LRTs), USDC reserves (via the PSM modules), and over $2 billion in tokenised real-world assets — primarily short-duration US Treasuries via Monetalis Clydesdale, BlockTower Andromeda, BlockTower Star, Centrifuge-tokenised pools and BlackRock's BUIDL. Combined USDS + DAI supply has grown past $12 billion by Q2 2026, making Sky the third-largest stablecoin issuer in crypto behind only Tether and Circle and the largest decentralized issuer by a 4-5x margin over Aave's GHO, Liquity's LUSD/BOLD, and Curve's crvUSD.

Who founded MakerDAO? Rune Christensen

Rune Christensen is a Danish entrepreneur who founded MakerDAO in 2014 — six years before "DeFi" became a recognised category. He had previously bootstrapped Try China, an English-teaching recruitment business, before pivoting to crypto in 2013 after reading about Bitcoin and Ethereum's pre-launch design. Christensen's central insight, articulated in early MakerDAO forum posts in 2014-2015, was that decentralized lending and a decentralized stablecoin were the two products that could carry crypto from speculation to actual financial-system primitives — a thesis the BIS DeFi report (2021), the IOSCO 2023 final DeFi report and the FSB 2023 financial-stability assessment have all subsequently validated.

Christensen co-founded MakerDAO with Nikolai Mushegian (who tragically passed in 2022) and recruited a deep team of engineers, lawyers, economists and DAO-governance specialists across what eventually became more than fifty MakerDAO Core Units. Christensen continues to serve as the lead architect of the protocol; his May 2022 Endgame Plan — a ~700-page document published on the MakerDAO forum and continuously revised since — is the master plan that the August 27, 2024 Sky rebrand is now executing.

The MakerDAO/Sky operating company structure is unusual. There is no "Sky Inc." that profits from the protocol — the protocol's revenue accrues to the Sky DAO treasury, which funds Sky Labs (the technology arm), Phoenix Labs (which seeded Spark), Grove (RWA strategy), the Sky Spark entity (Spark front-end and infrastructure) and dozens of other contractor organisations.

The Aug 27, 2024 Sky rebrand

On August 27, 2024 (Maker-Sky rebrand event) MakerDAO publicly relaunched as Sky. Three things happened simultaneously:

1. Sky.money went live as the consumer front end (replacing oasis.app for primary user-facing UX, though oasis.app continues to operate Spark interfaces).
2. USDS was deployed on Ethereum mainnet as a new ERC-20 stablecoin contract, paired with a permanent Upgrade Hub that swaps DAI ↔ USDS 1:1 with no fee.
3. SKY was deployed and paired with an Upgrade Hub that swaps MKR ↔ SKY at 24,000 SKY per 1 MKR, opt-in and one-way (you can swap MKR → SKY but not back). MKR continues to function as full governance.

The MakerDAO branding and the maker.dao / makerdao.com domains continue to operate; MakerDAO's GitHub organisation and forum at forum.makerdao.com remain authoritative for MKR-side governance, while forum.sky.money hosts Sky-side discussion. The protocol contracts on Ethereum mainnet are unchanged — the Maker Protocol, Vat, Cat (now Dog), Flap, Flop and Vow modules continue to mint and govern DAI, with USDS layered on top through the Upgrade Hub. Both DAI and USDS supply contribute to the same collateral pool and the same risk parameters.

The visible price action around the rebrand was modest — MKR declined ~10% over the surrounding two weeks on rebrand uncertainty, then recovered. SKY launched and traded around $0.06-0.10 in its first months. By Q2 2026, after sustained USDS adoption, SKY trades in the $0.04-0.08 range with a fully diluted market cap roughly comparable to MKR's pre-rebrand cap (which is what 24,000:1 redenomination should produce, mathematically).

USDS replaces DAI (1:1 swap)

USDS is functionally identical to DAI. Both are over-collateralized USD stablecoins issued by the same Maker Protocol on Ethereum mainnet, backed by the same collateral set, soft-pegged to $1.00 by the same arbitrage mechanisms, and earning the same protocol-revenue stream. The differences are cosmetic and operational, not architectural:

The Upgrade Hub is a permanent, immutable swap contract at a known address. Anyone can swap any quantity of DAI for USDS, or USDS for DAI, at exactly 1:1 with zero fee, indefinitely. There is no rate limit, no slippage, and no cooldown — the contract simply burns one and mints the other. This guarantees DAI ↔ USDS fungibility for the foreseeable future and lets DeFi protocols choose to integrate either side without forcing a hard migration on users.

By April 2026 USDS has grown to roughly $9 billion in supply (up from $0 at launch) while DAI has fallen from $5B to about $3B as users opt for the SSR yield and Sky's newer multi-chain deployments. Combined supply (USDS + DAI) has grown to $12B+, restoring MakerDAO/Sky to its 2022 peak issuance levels.

SKY replaces MKR (24,000:1, optional)

SKY is the new governance token. The 24,000-SKY-per-1-MKR redenomination is the most distinctive choice of the Sky rebrand and worth understanding clearly:

• MKR's circulating supply at the time of the rebrand was approximately 880,000 tokens, trading around $1,500-3,000.
• At 24,000:1 that becomes a fully-diluted SKY supply of approximately 24 billion at a sub-dollar price.

Why redenominate? Two reasons. (1) Accessibility. A token priced at $1,500-3,000 per unit is psychologically inaccessible to small holders and creates UI friction (most exchanges and wallets display fewer decimals than ideal at that price range). A sub-dollar SKY price reads as more familiar to mainstream users, makes "1 SKY = ~$0.05" intuitive, and reduces fractional-share complexity. (2) Marketing. The redenomination signals a clean break from the legacy MKR brand without any economic loss to existing holders.

The migration is opt-in and one-way. MKR holders can call the Upgrade Hub at any time and convert their MKR to SKY at exactly 24,000:1, but the reverse is not possible. Crucially, MKR holders are never forced — MKR remains a fully valid governance token, with full per-token voting power equivalent to its proportional SKY (one MKR vote = 24,000 SKY votes). By Q2 2026 SKY has crossed MKR in voting share but a meaningful minority of MKR remains unswapped, particularly in lost wallets and long-cold-storage holdings.

SKY is also distributed to early USDS users and SubDAO participants through the Token Activation Module (an emission program funded by the Sky DAO), accelerating decentralisation of governance away from the original MKR holder base.

The Endgame Plan: thesis and phases

Rune Christensen published the original Endgame Plan in May 2022 — about three weeks before the Terra/UST collapse rendered every "algorithmic stablecoin" thesis suspect. Endgame's core argument is structurally different from those failed designs and worth summarising:

Thesis. A successful, long-lived decentralized stablecoin requires (1) a deep, diversified collateral pool that includes real-world assets, (2) a governance system that scales beyond a single monolithic DAO into specialised SubDAOs, (3) an economic-security primitive that explicitly aligns governance with operational excellence rather than passive holding, and (4) the operational scaffolding to launch a dedicated application chain (NewChain) that can host the protocol's most security-critical operations independently of host-chain politics.

The plan articulated five phases:

1. Phase 1 — Beta Launch (2024). Sky rebrand, USDS launch, SKY launch, Upgrade Hub, first SubDAO (Spark) and Token Activation Module.
2. Phase 2 — SubDAO Rollout (2025-2026). Additional SubDAOs (Star Sky, Grove, others) launched as independent organisations with their own tokens, products and partial revenue streams.
3. Phase 3 — Governance AI (2025-2027). AI-assisted governance tooling (Atlas) to scale the proposal-evaluation throughput as SubDAO count grows.
4. Phase 4 — NewChain (2026-2028). A dedicated, app-specific blockchain (most likely an OP Stack rollup) that hosts the Maker Protocol's security-critical operations independent of Ethereum L1 governance dependencies.
5. Phase 5 — Mature Star System (2028+). A federated network of SubDAOs operating independently but sharing a common liquidity layer, dispute resolution and identity infrastructure.

Phases 1 and 2 are partially in production by April 2026; Phase 3 (Atlas) is in active development with limited deployment; Phases 4-5 remain on the long-term roadmap.

SubDAOs and the Star System

A SubDAO in Sky parlance is an independent organisation with its own governance, its own product line, its own token and treasury, but operating in coordination with the Sky DAO on shared liquidity, branding and risk infrastructure. The umbrella structure is called the Star System because the visual branding uses different "stars" (Spark, Star Sky, Grove etc.) for each SubDAO.

Each SubDAO has:

• A brand and front-end (separate from Sky's main app).
• A governance token (SPK for Spark, etc.) that votes on the SubDAO's product decisions.
• A revenue model — usually a fraction of fees flow back to Sky DAO and the rest stays with the SubDAO treasury.
• Operational independence — Sky DAO doesn't directly run product or hire staff; the SubDAO does, governed by its own token holders.
• Shared liquidity — the SubDAO can mint/redeem USDS, deposit into Sky reserves, and tap Spark Liquidity Layer routing.

This is a deliberate response to the failure mode of monolithic DAOs: as MakerDAO grew past 50 Core Units in 2022-2023, governance became congested, expert-context-loss problems multiplied, and major proposals took months to ratify. SubDAOs decompose that complexity.

Spark: SubDAO #1

Spark is the first and largest Sky SubDAO. It launched in May 2023 (pre-rebrand, then known as "SubDAO Phoenix") under the Phoenix Labs builder team and was formally constituted as a SubDAO with its own SPK token in 2024. By April 2026 Spark holds roughly $5-6 billion in TVL, ~25% of Sky's combined balance sheet, and is one of the top-five lending protocols in DeFi.

Spark consists of four main products:

Spark Lend (formerly SparkLend)

Spark Lend is a fork of Aave v3 with one critical modification: USDS is the primary borrowable asset, supplied directly to Spark Lend reserves by Sky's USDS Direct Deposit Module (see below). This means Spark borrowers always face deep, predictable USDS liquidity at a governance-set borrow rate, a structural advantage no other lending protocol matches. Other supplies/borrows include ETH, stETH, WBTC, USDC, GHO, USDtb, USDM, and tokenised treasuries.

Spark Savings

Spark Savings is the user-facing front end for the Sky Savings Rate (SSR) and the legacy DSR. Users deposit USDS or DAI and earn protocol revenue at the governance-set yield, with no lockup. By April 2026 Spark Savings holds about $2-3B in deposits.

Spark Liquidity Layer (SLL)

Spark Liquidity Layer routes idle Spark and Sky reserves across other DeFi protocols (Aave v3, Morpho, BUIDL fund, Curve LP positions, LRT vaults) to optimise yield. It is the closest DeFi equivalent of a central treasury operations desk — programmatic, transparent, governance-controlled.

SPK token

The Spark SubDAO token. SPK governs Spark's product decisions, captures a fraction of Spark's revenue stream, and is distributed to USDS depositors, Spark Lend users and Spark Savings depositors through ongoing emission programs.

Atlas and Sky governance

Atlas is the Sky governance constitution and proposal-management framework. It defines:

• The categories of proposal a SubDAO or the Sky DAO can submit (parameter changes, asset onboarding, RWA allocations, treasury actions).
• The voting thresholds and quorum requirements for each category.
• The dispute-resolution and conservatorship procedures if a SubDAO is found to have acted outside its mandate.

Atlas is published as a markdown document at docs.sky.money/atlas (and the legacy MakerDAO Atlas at endgame.makerdao.com), updated through governance.

Day-to-day proposals are drafted by Aligned Delegates — full-time governance professionals funded by the Sky DAO to represent token-holder interests. The Aligned Delegate program is the closest analogue in DeFi to a corporate board of directors with explicit fiduciary mandate.

RWA backing: 50%+ of collateral

This is the single most distinctive feature of Sky versus every other DeFi-native stablecoin issuer. As of April 2026, over 50% of USDS/DAI collateral is real-world assets — primarily short-duration US Treasury exposure, but also private credit and tokenised stablecoins. The composition by approximate share:

This composition is the result of a deliberate post-2022 strategy: after the Terra collapse demonstrated that pure-crypto-collateralized stablecoins are vulnerable to crypto-wide deleveraging cycles, MakerDAO governance progressively allocated more of its collateral to off-chain US Treasuries earning federal-funds-aligned yield. The strategy paid for itself many times over — RWA yield (Treasury coupons) is the dominant revenue source funding the SSR/DSR savings rate today.

The trade-off is that Sky now has off-chain counterparty risk — Monetalis, BlockTower and the other RWA structurers are real legal entities with real bankruptcy risk, even though they hold liquid Treasury exposure. The protocol has built legal segregation, bankruptcy-remote SPV structures, and on-chain attestation systems to mitigate this; the Oliver Wyman 2022 and 2023 reports treat MakerDAO's RWA architecture as the canonical case study.

Sky Savings Rate (SSR) and the legacy DSR

The DAI Savings Rate (DSR) has been a feature of MakerDAO since 2019. It pays a governance-set yield to DAI holders who deposit into the DSR contract; the rate is funded by stability fees (CDP borrow-rate revenue) and, since 2022, RWA yield. The DSR has ranged from 0% in 2020-2022 to 8% in 2023 to a steady 4-7% in 2024-2025.

The Sky Savings Rate (SSR) is the same primitive for USDS depositors. It runs on a separate contract from the DSR, so USDS depositors deposit into the SSR vault and DAI depositors deposit into the DSR vault. The two rates are usually identical (both governance-set, both funded from the same revenue pool) but Sky governance can set different rates if needed for migration incentives.

By April 2026 the SSR yields approximately 5.5-7.0% APY depending on the month, paid in additional USDS. About $2-3 billion of total USDS supply is staked in the SSR; another large fraction sits in Spark Savings which routes through the SSR contract under the hood.

USDS Direct Deposit Module (DDM)

The USDS Direct Deposit Module is the mechanism by which Sky directly mints USDS into another protocol's reserves at a governance-set borrow rate. The most important deployment is Spark DDM: Sky mints USDS directly into Spark Lend's USDS reserve, providing deep, predictable supply that lets Spark guarantee a low, stable borrow rate.

This is structurally similar to a central-bank standing facility. Spark borrowers always have USDS available to borrow at the governance-set rate; Sky earns the borrow-rate revenue; the DDM maintains a strict debt ceiling to manage protocol risk. The DDM has expanded beyond Spark to other partner protocols, including selected Aave v3 deployments through carefully-negotiated risk-parameter pairs.

Tokenized treasury collateral and Centrifuge

By April 2026 Sky accepts a wide range of tokenised real-world collateral beyond direct Treasury allocations:

• BlackRock BUIDL — BlackRock's tokenised money-market fund, issued via Securitize.
• Mountain USDM — Mountain Protocol's tokenised Treasury yield product.
• Ethena USDtb — Ethena's tokenised Treasury-backed stablecoin (reserves held largely in BlackRock's BUIDL), increasingly used as DAI/USDS collateral.
• Ethena sUSDe — Synthetic-dollar yield product accepted in selected vaults.
• Centrifuge tokenised pools — Centrifuge has been a Sky/MakerDAO partner since 2020 and now provides on-chain attested pools of tokenised invoice receivables, real-estate-backed credit, and trade-finance loans. Centrifuge sits at the on-chain/off-chain boundary, providing structured legal vehicles (Real Pools) that hold the off-chain assets and issue ERC-20 tokens that Sky CDPs can lock.
• GHO — Aave's GHO stablecoin is accepted in selected vaults as cross-stable collateral.

This list grows continuously through governance — Sky's "Spell" process onboards new collateral roughly every 4-12 weeks.

TVL, supply and market data in 2026

• USDS supply: ~$9B (up from $0 in August 2024).
• DAI supply: ~$3B (down from $5B at rebrand).
• Combined USDS + DAI: $12B+.
• Sky DAO net TVL (DefiLlama): ~$8B (excludes USDC reserves at face value).
• Spark TVL: $5-6B.
• Spark Savings deposits: $2-3B.
• RWA exposure: $2B+.
• Cumulative protocol revenue (lifetime): $1.5B+.
• Annualised revenue (TTM Q1 2026): $300-450M.
• MKR market cap: ~$2-3B.
• SKY market cap (excluding MKR-equivalent): ~$1-1.5B.
• Combined MKR + SKY market cap (apples-to-apples): ~$3-4.5B.
• SPK market cap: ~$200-400M.
• Number of active CDP / Vault holders: 8,000-15,000.

Sources: DefiLlama Sky/MakerDAO dashboard, Sky Lending dashboard, Sky governance forum monthly reports, Messari State of DeFi 2024, a16z State of Crypto 2025, Delphi DeFi Thesis 2024.

How USDS works (mechanics)

Minting via CDP

A user opens a CDP (Collateralized Debt Position) by locking ETH, stETH, WBTC, RWA tokens or other approved collateral into a Maker Vault. The vault assigns a maximum debt limit based on the collateral type's liquidation ratio (e.g. 145% for ETH, meaning $145 of ETH backs $100 of USDS). The user can then mint up to the limit in USDS (or DAI), pay the stability fee (annualised borrow rate set by governance) and exit by repaying.

Peg defense

Multiple mechanisms keep USDS pegged near $1:

• Arbitrage — When USDS trades above $1, opening a CDP and selling minted USDS is profitable, increasing supply. Below $1, repaying CDPs at sub-par prices is profitable, reducing supply.
• PSM (Peg Stability Module) — Direct 1:1 swap of USDC ↔ USDS within a daily cap.
• Upgrade Hub — DAI ↔ USDS at 1:1, no fee, no cap. This means USDS implicitly inherits DAI's full peg-defense apparatus.

Liquidations

If a CDP's collateral value falls below the liquidation threshold, Keeper bots liquidate — buying the collateral at auction at a discount and using the proceeds to cover the debt. The 12 March 2020 ("Black Thursday") liquidation cascade is the most-studied liquidation event in DeFi history and led to multiple protocol upgrades.

Stability fees and revenue

The annualised borrow rate that CDP holders pay to keep their USDS positions open. Stability fees + RWA yield + PSM fees fund the SSR/DSR, the Sky DAO treasury, and SubDAO subsidies.

Why the rebrand (Endgame thesis)

Rebranding a protocol with $12B in liquidity, a globally-recognised stablecoin (DAI) and a 10-year track record carries non-trivial risk. Christensen's argument for doing it now distils to three points:

1. Brand reach. "MakerDAO" reads as DeFi-native and inaccessible to mainstream finance. "Sky" is a clean consumer brand with parallel mainstream associations (sky-blue, the sky's the limit, the financial sky etc.).
2. Architectural reset. Rebranding gives a one-time opportunity to retire legacy primitives (the dual MKR/DAI brand, individual Core Units), redenominate the token to a more accessible price range, and articulate the SubDAO structure publicly.
3. Legal positioning. As regulatory frameworks mature (MiCA in Europe, GENIUS in the US), a clean separation between "the protocol" (Sky DAO) and "the legacy artifact" (DAI) gives compliance counsel more flexibility on issuance, redemption and reserves disclosure.

Critics — well-articulated in Delphi's 2024 DeFi Thesis — argued the rebrand was a vanity exercise that fragmented a strong brand. Two years on, the on-chain numbers (USDS supply growth from $0 to $9B; SubDAO TVL growth; SSR adoption) suggest the rebrand has been a net-positive business decision regardless.

Future SubDAOs

Beyond Spark (SubDAO #1), the Sky roadmap as of April 2026 includes:

• Star Sky (planned SubDAO #2) — Operates the eventual NewChain, an OP Stack or zkSync-derived application-specific rollup hosting Sky's most security-critical operations (CDP engine, RWA legal-vehicle attestations).
• Grove SubDAO — RWA strategy and legal-entity management, formalising the role currently played by the Grove operating entity.
• Tokenized treasury SubDAO — A specialised SubDAO for tokenised-treasury origination, partnering with BlackRock, Securitize, Ondo, Mountain and others.
• Privacy-stable SubDAO — Researched but not yet greenlit; would issue a privacy-preserving USDS variant on a dedicated rollup.

Each SubDAO follows the standard Star System launch process: Atlas amendment, SubDAO token genesis, USDS DDM allocation, and a 12-18 month maturation period.

Risks and criticism

1. RWA counterparty risk. Monetalis, BlockTower and other RWA partners are real legal entities; legal-vehicle bankruptcy or operational failure could impair collateral. Mitigated by SPV structures and on-chain attestations but not eliminated.
2. Off-chain regulatory exposure. The RWA strategy depends on a permissive US Treasury structuring environment. A regulatory tightening (e.g. SEC reclassifying tokenised Treasuries) could force a reallocation.
3. PSM concentration on USDC. A USDC depeg (March 2023 demonstrated this can happen) propagates to USDS/DAI through the PSM. Mitigated by diversification across BUIDL, USDtb, etc.
4. Endgame execution risk. A 700-page plan with 5+ year horizon has many moving parts. Some Phase 2 SubDAOs have launched late or under-funded relative to original timelines.
5. Governance complexity. Atlas, Aligned Delegates and SubDAOs add complexity that small token holders cannot meaningfully follow. This is the core tension of professionalised DAO governance.
6. Token-redenomination noise. The SKY:MKR 24,000:1 ratio created a multi-month period where price discovery between MKR and SKY was non-trivial, harming retail exit and entry liquidity.
7. Smart-contract risk. The Maker Protocol has not been exploited in 8+ years, but new SubDAO and SLL surface area expands the attack surface.
8. Competition. Aave's GHO, Curve's crvUSD, Liquity v2 (BOLD), Frax FRAX 3.0 and a wave of yield-bearing stables (sUSDe, USDtb, USDM) compete directly for stablecoin market share.

How to use Sky (step-by-step)

Buying or earning on USDS

1. Acquire USDS via:
   • Direct CDP — Open a vault on app.sky.money or oasis.app, lock collateral, mint USDS.
   • Swap from DAI — Use the Upgrade Hub at sky.money to swap DAI → USDS 1:1 free.
   • DEX swap — Buy USDS on Uniswap, Curve or any DEX where USDS pools exist (often deepest in USDS-USDC and USDS-DAI pools).
   • CEX — USDS is listed on most major exchanges by 2026.
2. Earn the SSR by depositing into the Sky Savings Rate vault at sky.money or via Spark Savings on app.spark.fi.
3. Withdraw any time; SSR is non-locking.

Migrating MKR → SKY

1. Hold MKR in a self-custodial wallet.
2. Visit sky.money/upgrade.
3. Approve MKR spend, then call the Upgrade Hub. Receive 24,000 SKY per MKR.
4. The migration is one-way and irreversible.
5. Use SKY to vote in Sky governance via app.sky.money/governance.

Opening a Sky CDP / Vault

1. Visit app.spark.fi (or Oasis Borrow at oasis.app/borrow).
2. Connect wallet, choose collateral type (ETH, stETH, WBTC, etc.).
3. Deposit collateral.
4. Borrow USDS up to the liquidation ratio. Stay at 50-60% of max LTV to avoid liquidations.
5. Pay the stability fee continuously; repay any time.

ELI5: MakerDAO and Sky in plain English

Imagine MakerDAO/Sky as a global decentralized credit union that lets anyone borrow stablecoins by locking up ETH, Bitcoin or US Treasuries as collateral. Every dollar of USDS or DAI in circulation is backed by at least $1.45 of collateral held in transparent, audited smart contracts on Ethereum. There is no bank, no CEO, no shareholder — the protocol is governed by holders of the SKY (formerly MKR) token who vote on which collateral to accept, what interest rate to charge, and how to deploy the protocol's $300M+ annual revenue.

In 2024 the credit union rebranded from "MakerDAO" to "Sky" and launched a parallel new stablecoin (USDS) and a parallel new governance token (SKY). Old DAI still exists, old MKR still exists, both still vote — the new tokens are an opt-in upgrade, not a forced migration. The point of the rebrand was to make the brand more accessible to mainstream users and to reorganise the protocol into specialised "SubDAOs" — independent product teams (the first one is Spark, a lending protocol with $5-6B in assets) — that can move faster than a single 50-person committee.

You can hold USDS to earn 5-7% interest (the Sky Savings Rate), borrow against your ETH or Treasuries, or buy SKY to vote on the protocol. It is the third-largest stablecoin ecosystem in crypto and the largest decentralized one — and the only one with over half its collateral in real US Treasury bills, which makes it more like a tokenised money-market fund than a pure crypto stablecoin.

Sky vs Liquity vs Curve crvUSD vs Aave GHO

Trade-offs:

• Sky USDS wins on scale, RWA exposure, savings rate and product depth (Spark, multi-chain, RWA partnerships). Loses on simplicity — the Maker/Sky stack is the most complex stablecoin to evaluate.
• Liquity wins on purity — ETH-only, no governance, immutable contracts, redeemable at $1 face value at any time. Loses on scale and yield.
• Curve crvUSD wins on liquidation UX (soft LLAMMA liquidations are gentler than hard CDP liquidations). Loses on scale and RWA.
• Aave GHO wins on lending-protocol composability — minting GHO is just opening an Aave borrow. Loses on independent collateral diversity (always reliant on Aave's reserves).

The four products are increasingly differentiated rather than substitutable. Sky is the largest, most mature, most RWA-heavy. Aave's GHO is the cleanest example of "stablecoin as lending-protocol byproduct." Liquity is the purest crypto-only design. crvUSD is the most innovative liquidation engineering.

Research and reports

• BIS DeFi quarterly review (Dec 2021) — early academic treatment of MakerDAO.
• Messari State of DeFi 2024 — Sky/MakerDAO transition coverage.
• Delphi Digital DeFi Thesis 2024 — Endgame critique and SubDAO analysis.
• Nansen DeFi Report 2024 — flow analysis around the rebrand.
• DefiLlama DeFi Review 2024 — TVL snapshot.
• a16z State of Crypto 2025 — RWA narrative.
• IOSCO DeFi Final Report 2023 — regulatory framing of CDP stables.
• FSB DeFi Stability Risks 2023 — MakerDAO as systemic candidate.

FAQ

What is Sky and what was MakerDAO?

Sky is the rebranded name of MakerDAO, the longest-running DeFi protocol. Founder Rune Christensen launched MakerDAO in 2014; the DAI stablecoin shipped in December 2017 and became DeFi's foundational over-collateralized stablecoin. On August 27, 2024 the protocol rebranded to Sky, launched USDS (1:1 with DAI), launched SKY (24,000:1 from MKR, optional swap), and reorganised into a Star System of SubDAOs to execute the Endgame Plan.

Why did MakerDAO rebrand to Sky?

The rebrand executes the Endgame Plan that Rune Christensen first proposed in May 2022. Endgame's thesis is that MakerDAO needed to decompose into specialised SubDAOs to scale governance, refresh the brand for an audience beyond DeFi natives, deepen RWA backing, and prepare for a NewChain. The August 27, 2024 Sky launch was the public Phase-1 execution.

What is USDS and how does it relate to DAI?

USDS is Sky's new $1-pegged stablecoin, fungible 1:1 with DAI through a permanent zero-fee Upgrade Hub. By April 2026 USDS supply has grown to roughly $9B and DAI has fallen to about $3B as users migrate. USDS is live on Ethereum and is now also live on Solana (USDS-SOL) and Sui (USDSUI), with Base and Arbitrum deployments rolling out.

What is SKY and how does it relate to MKR?

SKY is Sky's new governance token, swappable from MKR at 24,000:1 through a permanent opt-in one-way upgrade. The redenomination converts MKR's $1,500-3,000 price into a sub-dollar SKY price, making governance more accessible. Both tokens remain valid governance instruments. SKY now leads MKR in voting share by Q2 2026, but MKR holders are never forced to swap.

What is Endgame?

Endgame is the long-form (~700-page) restructuring plan published by Rune Christensen in May 2022. It restructures MakerDAO into a Star System of SubDAOs, launches NewChain, NewStable (USDS) and NewGovToken (SKY), and articulates a 5-phase roadmap from Phase 1 (Sky rebrand, 2024) through Phase 5 (mature federated star system, 2028+). The 2024 rebrand and 2025-2026 SubDAO rollouts execute Phases 1 and 2.

What is Spark and what does Spark Lend do?

Spark is Sky's first SubDAO, founded by Phoenix Labs and now governed by an independent SPK token. Its flagship Spark Lend is a fork of Aave v3 that uses USDS as its primary borrowable asset via the USDS Direct Deposit Module — Sky directly mints USDS into Spark's reserves, providing deep, predictable liquidity. Spark also runs Spark Savings, the Spark Liquidity Layer and tokenised treasury markets. Spark TVL is ~$5-6B by April 2026.

What is the Sky Savings Rate?

The SSR is the savings yield Sky pays USDS depositors who deposit into the SSR contract, replacing the legacy DSR for USDS holders. Funded by stability-fee revenue and RWA yield. SSR ranges from 4-9% APY in 2025-2026 depending on rate-environment and CDP utilisation. DAI holders can still earn the DSR on the legacy contract.

What real-world assets back Sky / USDS?

As of April 2026 over 50% of USDS / DAI collateral is real-world assets — primarily short-duration US Treasury exposure through Monetalis Clydesdale, BlockTower Andromeda, BlockTower Star, Centrifuge-tokenised pools and BlackRock's BUIDL. RWA exposure exceeds $2 billion. Plus USDC reserves via PSM, tokenised treasuries (USDM, USDtb), Ethena USDe, and crypto CDP collateral (ETH, stETH, WBTC).

Sky vs Liquity vs Curve crvUSD vs Aave GHO?

All four are over-collateralized DeFi-native stablecoins with different designs. Sky USDS uses CDPs plus deep RWA backing and the largest balance sheet ($12B+). Liquity is the purest design — ETH-only, no governance, immutable, $1-redeemable at all times. Curve crvUSD uses LLAMMA soft liquidations, with crypto collateral only and a smaller scale. Aave GHO mints from Aave v3 borrow positions; 100% of GHO interest accrues to Aave DAO. By scale and RWA exposure, Sky is the largest; by purity, Liquity wins; by lending composability, GHO wins.

Will MKR / DAI keep working?

Yes, indefinitely. The MKR-to-SKY upgrade is opt-in and one-way, but never forced — MKR holders who don't swap remain full governance participants with the same per-token voting power. DAI is still minted by the Maker Protocol vaults and 1:1 redeemable for USDS through the Upgrade Hub forever. The Sky team's stated long-term plan is to phase MKR voting parity out gradually over multiple years, but no hard deadline exists.

Glossary

• Atlas — Sky's governance constitution and proposal-management framework.
• CDP (Collateralized Debt Position) — A vault locking collateral and issuing USDS/DAI debt.
• DAI — MakerDAO's original $1-pegged stablecoin, launched December 2017.
• DDM (Direct Deposit Module) — Sky's mechanism to mint USDS directly into a partner protocol's reserves.
• DSR (DAI Savings Rate) — Yield Sky pays DAI depositors. Identical mechanism to SSR.
• Endgame — Rune Christensen's 700-page restructuring plan, May 2022.
• GHO — Aave's over-collateralized stablecoin, the closest competitor to USDS.
• MKR — MakerDAO's original governance token; capped supply ~880,000.
• NewChain — Phase-4 application-specific rollup; planned 2026-2028.
• PSM (Peg Stability Module) — Direct USDC ↔ USDS/DAI swap at 1:1.
• RWA (Real-World Asset) — Off-chain assets (US Treasuries, private credit) tokenised on-chain.
• Sky DAO — The post-rebrand governance organisation.
• SKY — Sky's new governance token at 24,000:1 from MKR.
• Spark / Spark Lend / Spark Savings — SubDAO #1; lending and savings products.
• SPK — Spark SubDAO token.
• SSR (Sky Savings Rate) — Yield Sky pays USDS depositors.
• Stability fee — The annualised borrow rate on a CDP.
• Star System — Sky's SubDAO architecture; visual brand for SubDAO independence.
• SubDAO — An independent product organisation operating under Sky's umbrella.
• Upgrade Hub — Permanent zero-fee swap contracts (DAI ↔ USDS, MKR ↔ SKY).
• USDS — Sky's new $1-pegged stablecoin.

Related reading (internal links)

• What is DeFi? 2026 Guide
• What is Ethereum? 2026 Guide
• Uniswap Complete Guide 2026
• Aave Complete Guide 2026
• Stablecoins Explained 2026 Guide
• Real-World Asset Tokenization 2026 Guide

Related comparisons

• Compare: Ethena vs MakerDAO
• Compare: Aave vs MKR
• Compare: Aave vs Spark
• Compare: Ethena vs Frax

Sources and further reading

• Sky.money — main Sky portal
• Sky docs
• Endgame plan
• MakerDAO.com — legacy MakerDAO portal
• forum.makerdao.com — MakerDAO governance forum
• forum.sky.money — Sky governance forum
• Spark.fi — Spark SubDAO portal
• DefiLlama MakerDAO dashboard
• DefiLlama Sky Lending dashboard
• Centrifuge.io — RWA partner
• BIS. (2021). DeFi quarterly review
• IOSCO. (2023). Final report on DeFi
• FSB. (2023). Financial stability risks of DeFi
• Messari. State of DeFi 2024.
• Delphi Digital. DeFi Thesis 2024.
• a16z crypto. State of Crypto 2025.
• Oliver Wyman. (2022). Institutional DeFi report.
• Oliver Wyman. (2023). DeFi capital markets report.

About the author

DeFi Intel Research is the in-house research arm of DeFi Intel, a quantitative crypto desk operating arbitrage, MEV and yield strategies on Ethereum, Solana and Base. Our analysts track Sky/MakerDAO since 2018, hold operational positions in Sky CDP, Spark Lend and Spark Savings, and have analysed every major Sky governance proposal from the 2020 LEND-AAVE migration onwards. Editorial standards: every numeric claim sourced; protocol risks declared honestly; no affiliate links. Read more at /about.

Last updated: 2026-04-26