Rune Christensen had a radical idea in 2014: what if money did not need a bank? MakerDAO lets anyone deposit crypto and mint DAI — a dollar-pegged stablecoin that no government or company controls. It has maintained its peg through multiple crypto crashes, including a 50% ETH drawdown in a single day. Over $18 billion in collateral has been locked in the protocol. The irony: to scale, MakerDAO has started backing DAI with US Treasury bonds — the very government-issued assets it was designed to replace. Purists are furious. Pragmatists say this is how you get to a trillion dollars. Both are probably right.
Founded
2014
HQ
Decentralized (originally Copenhagen, Denmark)
Total Raised
$54.5 million (equity) + protocol treasury
Founder
Rune Christensen
Status
Decentralized protocol (MKR/SKY tokens on major exchanges)
Website
makerdao.comTHE ORIGIN STORY
Rune Christensen, a Danish entrepreneur, started building MakerDAO in 2014 with the vision of creating a decentralized stablecoin that could not be censored or frozen by any government or company. DAI launched on the Ethereum mainnet in December 2017.
It maintained its dollar peg through the 2018-2019 bear market, the 2020 COVID crash, and the 2022 crypto winter — each time proving that a decentralized stablecoin could be stable. MakerDAO became the foundational layer of DeFi — DAI is used across hundreds of protocols for lending, trading, and payments.
WHAT THEY ACTUALLY DO
MakerDAO is the protocol behind DAI — one of the most important stablecoins in crypto. Users deposit crypto collateral (primarily ETH) into "Vaults" and mint DAI, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.
Unlike USDT or USDC, DAI is decentralized — no single company controls it. Revenue comes from stability fees (interest on loans) and liquidation penalties.
At its peak, MakerDAO managed over $18 billion in collateral. The protocol is governed by MKR token holders through on-chain voting.
THE PRODUCTS
DAI/USDS (decentralized stablecoin), Maker Vaults (collateralized lending), Spark Protocol (lending), MKR/SKY (governance token), DSR (DAI Savings Rate)
HOW THEY GREW
MakerDAO launched "Endgame" in 2023 — a plan to restructure the protocol into multiple "SubDAOs" and rebrand as "Sky" with the SKY token. The strategy aims to scale DAI (rebranded to USDS) to trillions in supply by adding more real-world assets as collateral.
The bet: decentralized stablecoins will become a major part of global payments if the protocol can bridge crypto and traditional finance.
THE HARD PART
Maintaining the peg during extreme market volatility. In March 2020, a sudden ETH price crash caused $8.3 million in bad debt when liquidation auctions failed to execute properly.
MakerDAO had to mint new MKR tokens to recapitalize the system — diluting existing holders. Regulatory pressure on stablecoins is also a growing concern.
MakerDAO controversially added real-world assets (US Treasury bonds) as collateral, which some purists argue defeats the purpose of decentralization.
MONEY TRAIL
Series A
2017 · Led by
$12M raised
Series B
2019 · Led by
$28M raised
Protocol Treasury
2021 · Led by
$0 raised
WHO BACKED THEM
Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain Capital, Dragonfly Capital, Paradigm
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