This is the official HackerNoon wiki for Maker. As part of our coin price pages, this living wiki displays on
Maker is short for Maker DAO. Maker is a decentralized autonomous organization smart contract platform. It created the MKR token which is the governance token of the Maker platform and funds MakerDAO. The platform also created the DAI stablecoin. The DAI stablecoin offers a safer option that is unaffected by the current cryptocurrency market for MakerDAO users. The Maker token is backed by Ether by Ethereum and not traditional currency. Maker DAO is operated by the maker foundation.
History
MakerDAO was created by Rune Christensen. In 2017 and 2018, MAKER DAO received venture capital worth $27 million. The first venture round had eight investors, the largest being Anderseen Horowitz who invested $15 million into the platform. The DAI stablecoin was launched in December 2017 and became among the top fifty top traded cryptocurrencies within a year according to Coin Market cap.
In 2019, two venture capital firms, Paradigm and Dragonfly Capital, bought 5.5% of the global supply of DAI for $27 million.
Biggest Claims to Fame
The entire token system controlled by Maker is fully on blockchain platforms. It is a trully and completely decentralized token system which is one of the main tenets of cryptocurrency. This has encouraged true believers of cryptocurrency and the cryptocurrency vision to invest in Maker over any of the competitors of Maker.
The Maker tokens stayed steady in value during the 2018 cryptocurrency market which was at an all-time low. Despite the value of Ethereum dropping and staying low for most of the year, the value of Maker tokens MKR and DAI stayed at a relatively steady value. This encouraged people and gave them hope the tokens could last for a long time.
Makers transparency has put it above its competitors, especially in the stablecoin market. All of their transactions are transparent and their developments are advertised well before they are implemented. They make recordings of meetings they have available for anyone who wishes to watch, whether users or skeptics.
Over 400 decentralized finance applications and cryptocurrency exchanges use DAI, one of the MakerDAO cryptocurrencies. Its exposure to several diverse markets has increased its visibility to the crypto market. The constant circulation is also good in increasing the value of the DAI and, in turn, Maker
DAI is among the leading decentralized, permissionless, and trustless stablecoins on Ethereum’s decentralized finance platform. There is DAI worth nearly $8 billion in circulation on the Ethereum blockchain. This makes it the better choice for most of the users of the Ethereum platform who need to make use of a stablecoin.
By using Ethereum to back it, Maker DAO avoids many of the issues other cryptocurrencies face of having backers make demands and try to censor information. The decentralization gives Maker the opportunity to be truly independent of traditional financial institutions that would make demands Maker may not want to meet.
Biggest Criticism
Though the decentralization of finance was one of the main principles behind cryptocurrency, Maker having all its backing finances in cryptocurrency form is considered risky by skeptics. In case the value of Ethereum ever falls drastically, many of the people who have money in Maker will find themselves without any.
In order to reduce its dependence on Ethereum, the platform began to accept different forms of collateral such as other stablecoins and assets. The introduction of different assets may give way to the centralized stablecoins and assets entering the market which could increase the level of censorship and could lead to users trying to centralize the platform.
Ethereum has a very publicly known issue with scaling the platform. As the backer of MakerDAO, this has caused many problems for Maker, since people assume these issues may affect the growth in value of MKR. This has caused the price of MKR to reduce in value and market price.
The value of DAI is very often not exactly $1. It fluctuates by a few cents in either direction. This price fluctuation could happen within seconds. It has put off those who would like to put their money in a stablecoin from putting their money in DAI because it is unsure whether the fluctuations will always be just a few cents all the time.
Team
Maker DAO was created by Rune Christensen. He currently acts as the CEO of the platform. Christensen studied Biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen and proceeded to study international business at Copenhagen business school. He cofounded Try China, a company that served as an international recruitment platform before going on to create Maker DAO.
In Conclusion
MakerDAO has held up to time, becoming one of the most decentralized and stable cryptocurrencies in the market today. Though it is stabilized by Ethereum, the platform has a series of checks and balances that have ensured the value of its stablecoin is steady, despite the value of Ethereum rising and falling.
This is the official HackerNoon wiki for Maker. As part of our coin price pages, this living wiki displays on