MakerDAO members have appeared in record numbers to reserve the principles of decentralization, setting new examples for future DAO governance.
In a most important win for decentralization, members of MakerDAO, the lending protocol behind the Dai (DAI) stablecoin, have excluded a series of proposals that would have seen the protocol’s governance structure become more centralized.
On June 27, the members of MakerDAO (MKR) showed up to consider three proposals that would have rationalized the management of the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) into something that more closely looks like a traditional corporation, ample with a board of directors.
The proposals were drafted as possible solutions for making the DAO more effective and more capable of executing “high-level decisions.” Author of one of the proposals and member of the MakerDAO Protocol Engineering Core Unit, Sam McPherson stated his frustration about the current governance model,
The 1st proposal, named LOVE-001, recommended creating a new “oversight Core Unit.” Fundamentally this proposal would have established a new unit that would “periodically audit the activity of other Core Units” — a methodical way of saying that a more centralized authority would be capable of using additional control over decisions regarding new collateral.
Over 60% of the 293,911 MKR delegated governance tokens were used to vote against the LOVE-001 proposal.
According to MakerDAO’s GitHub, the second proposal called “Makershire Hathaway” would create a 10-million-dollar special purpose fund intended to earn produce from the protocol’s stablecoin reserves. Makershire Hathaway was disallowed by 65% of voters.
The third proposal, branded only as MIP75c3-SP1, suggested the establishment of an optional fund that would be overseen by a new “Growth Task Force” that would aim to grow Maker “as fast as possible.” This proposal received the most independent rejection, with just over 76% of MKR tokens used to vote against it.
The three proposals seemed to have stimulated the pot, with MakerDAO noting that they observed the largest amount of governance voting activity to date.
The rejection of these proposals united with the historic voter crowd indicates that MakerDAO members may strongly prefer a properly decentralized model of governance, setting a strong example for other decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
MakerDAO is the governing body of the Maker protocol, which issues U.S. dollar-pegged DAI stablecoins in exchange for user deposits of Ether (ETH), Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), and nearly 30 other cryptocurrencies.
MakerDAO took one more major step this month, with the protocol expressing its desire to capitalize a portion of its dormant stablecoin reserves into traditional financial assets. Earlier this month, as fears of DeFi contagion spread, MakerDao voted to cut off lending platform Aave’s capability to produce Dai for its lending pool without collateral.
In spite of the series of crucial developments for the DeFi protocol, Maker’s governance token MKR is down roughly 10% over the past week, presently trading for $880 according to Cointelegraph Price Index.
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