DeFi Protocol MakerDAO Rebrands to Sky, Ahead of USDS Stablecoin Launch in September

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol MakerDAO has officially rebranded to Sky, ahead of launching its new stablecoin USDS in September.

MakerDAO is one of the crypto world’s largest and oldest DeFi projects, and its DAO chain runs on Ethereum.

Sky’s USDS stablecoin will launch on September 18. USDS is intended to act as a successor to the project’s flagship stablecoin DAI, which is currently the world’s third-largest stablecoin with a market capitalization of roughly $81 billion.

Another new coin, known as SKY, serves as the "upgraded version" of MKR, MakerDAO’s treasury coin.

USDS and SKY will not replace the project’s current cryptocurrencies, and DAI and MKR will remain in circulation.

MakerDAO’s users will be able to voluntarily exchange their cryptocurrencies for USDS and SKY.

Each MKR token will be convertible to 24,000 SKY tokens, while each DAI token will convert to one USDS.

The rebranding project has been termed “Endgame” by MakerDAO founder Rune Christensen, who has said it will lead to increased accessibility for users once complete.

The rebrand, which was first announced by the project’s founder in March 2024, will also include a new website and app.

The website is currently live, though many users in countries across the world have reported difficulties accessing the site as of the time of writing.

The Endgame revamp will not see the DeFi project depart from the Ethereum blockchain which the project has used since its inception.

MakerDao’s founder had teased the idea of creating a chain based on competitor blockchain Solana—leading to a sell-off of MKT tokens from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, which totalled over $500,000 at the prices of the time.

However, Sky has not recently announced any plans to build on Solana.

NewChain, a stand-alone L1 blockchain “that will host the core tokenomics and governance mechanics of Maker Core and the SubDAOs”, has been dubbed the final stage of Endgame.

Other upcoming changes are slated for the Endgame revamp. Maker SubDAOs, independent protocol units which operate within MakerDAO, will be renamed “Sky Stars”.

Maker SubDAOs include Spark Protocol, which reached over $1 billion in TVL in March, according to DeFiLlama.

MKR is up 1.4% in the past 24 hours following the announcement, per data from CoinGecko.