MKR Whales Block Rebranding Proposal, Sky Ecosystem Governance Votes to Keep the Sky Brand

The proposal to revert the DeFi platform Sky to its original name, Maker, was blocked by a decisive vote from major stakeholders, known as “whales.”

A proposal to revert decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Sky to its original name, Maker, has been blocked by a decisive vote from major stakeholders, known as "whales."

Four key MKR whales, wielding 98% of the voting influence, stood firm in their support of the existing Sky branding. As a result, the rebranding initiative fizzled under the overwhelming sway of these influential whale voters.

"Sky ecosystem governance has concluded an onchain vote to continue using the Sky brand as the primary backend protocol of the ecosystem," the DeFi protocol team announced in a post on Xeno on Nov. 8.

It further stated that the decision "supports the ongoing transition from MKR to SKY and establishes Sky as the core brand."

The vote, which commenced on Nov. 4, concluded with 79% opting to "Keep the Sky brand as the backend protocol brand," garnering 63,874 MKR in support.

Only 18.5% of the votes, amounting to 14,864 MKR tokens, favored a limited brand revival of Maker.

Four whale investors held 62,452 MKR, representing 98% of the voting power, and voted in favor of the Sky brand, while a single whale committed nearly all the MKR to the Maker rebranding proposal.

Following a confusing and poorly received August rebrand, the Sky community began discussing a return to the original Maker name in October. Rune Christensen, the protocol's co-founder, pushed for a discussion on the governance forum to "recenter the Maker brand."

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Earlier in the week, ahead of the vote's conclusion, Vance Spencer of Framework Ventures noted that SKY had not yet fully launched.

"It is not yet supported on any major exchanges, entities like CoinGecko did not transition MKR market cap to SKY, and the rebrand timing was coincident with one large fund selling their MKR and a general market pullback," he said, adding:

"Going with SKY – I think there is a lot of value to be unearthed by following the Endgame roadmap, but there are things that could be altered and lessons to be learned."

After the late August rebrand, the token's price crashed by nearly 50%, hitting $1,100 on Nov. 6. However, it recovered, rising above $1,600 in late Nov. 7 trading before falling back to $1,476 at the time of writing.

On Nov. 4, Christensen also introduced a proposal for "strictly deflationary tokenomics" to reduce token emissions and the total supply, which may have contributed to the rebound.