Sky will not re-rebrand as MakerDAO after a community vote that favored keeping the new identity

The rebranding is central to founder Rune Christensen's “Endgame” strategy, which aims to reshape the protocol for more competitiveness and resilience.

Crypto community members voted to keep the Sky brand for MakerDAO’s backend protocol.

The decision aligns with founder Rune Christensen’s “Endgame” strategy, which aims to enhance the protocol’s competitiveness.

However, the vote highlights the centralization of governance power within MakerDAO.

Despite the strategic rationale, the rebranding has faced mixed reactions from the community.

The move is part of a broader rebranding effort, which includes introducing new products and tokens under the Sky banner.After a community vote, crypto brand MakerDAO will continue to be known as Sky for its backend protocol. This decision is central to founder Rune Christensen’s “Endgame” strategy, which aims to enhance the protocol’s competitiveness and resilience. However, the vote also highlights the disparities in governance power within MakerDAO. Despite the strategic rationale behind the rebrand, the move has elicited mixed reactions from the community.

MakerDAO Governance Vote on Sky Brand

On Friday, Sky announced the decision to retain the Sky brand for its backend protocol in a post on X. The vote aimed to determine whether the community wished to continue using the new brand name as the ecosystem’s primary backend protocol.

“This decision supports the ongoing transition from MKR to SKY and establishes Sky as the core brand, denoting both the Sky app frontend and the backend Sky Ecosystem and Sky Protocol,” the project team explained.

The governance polls show that the proposal to revert Sky to its original Maker branding faced substantial opposition. Specifically, nearly 80% of the vote share leaned toward maintaining the Sky identity as the protocol’s “backend protocol brand.”

This decision aligns with Christensen’s ambitious “Endgame” strategy, which he introduced in late 2022. The Sky co-founder proposed the strategy to revitalize what he perceived as a stagnating DeFi project.

Christensen wants to diversify MakerDAO’s services and develop new products. The plans include launching a range of new stablecoins, creating an alternative governance token called SKY, and establishing “subDAOs.”

In September, MakerDAO members voted to give DAI holders the option to exchange their tokens for a new stablecoin named Sky Dollar (USDS) at a 1:1 ratio. Likewise, MKR holders could swap their tokens for SKY tokens at a 1:24,000 ratio.

Of note is that the organization clarified that DAI and MKR tokens will continue to exist alongside USDS and SKY in the near future. Nevertheless, the introduction of SKY and USDS represents a strategic effort to attract new users and accommodate diverse regulatory and decentralization demands in the market.

Products and Tokens Under the Sky Brand

With Sky now in place, the rebranding may proceed to introduce a new suite of tokens and products under the new banner. This includes launching decentralized and regulatory-compliant stablecoins like puredai and NewStable, respectively. These products target different segments: puredai for censorship-resistant uses and NewStable for broader, compliance-driven adoption.

Sky is preparing to introduce these stablecoins on Solana and Ethereum Layer-2 Base, suggesting possible integrations across blockchains and maximizing accessibility. Another notable development is Sky’s planned collaboration with Aave, a leading DeFi protocol, to offer stacked USDS rewards. Sky will also introduce a staking system using both SKY and MKR tokens alongside a custom bridge called SkyLink for EVM chains.