Sky

Sky is the August 2024 successor to MakerDAO, one of DeFi's founding protocols, rebranded under Rune Christensen's Endgame restructuring plan to become a modular, multi-chain stablecoin and savings network anchored by USDS and governed by the SKY token.

From MakerDAO to Sky

MakerDAO launched in 2015 as Ethereum's first large-scale decentralized lending protocol, allowing users to lock crypto collateral and mint DAI, a dollar-pegged stablecoin. Over the following decade, DAI became one of the most widely used decentralized stablecoins in existence. On August 27, 2024, the protocol retired the MakerDAO name and rolled out Sky as a rebranded, restructured entity executing the final phase of the Endgame plan — a governance overhaul designed to solve scalability and coordination problems that a single monolithic DAO faces at billion-dollar scale.

The rebrand introduced two new tokens alongside the legacy ones. DAI remains fully redeemable but can be upgraded 1:1 to USDS, the new flagship stablecoin. MKR can be converted to SKY at a fixed rate of 24,000 SKY per MKR, replacing MKR as the primary governance and staking token. Both legacy assets remain live and redeemable, providing a backwards-compatible migration path.

Core Products

USDS is an over-collateralized stablecoin backed by a diversified mix of on-chain crypto assets and tokenized real-world assets including US Treasuries. As of June 2026, USDS supply stands at $10.04 billion — a 96.9% increase year-over-year — with total protocol collateral at $12.32 billion, up 45.2% from a year prior.

sUSDS is the savings-bearing wrapper on USDS. Users deposit USDS and receive sUSDS, which accrues the Sky Savings Rate automatically on-chain. The Sky Savings Rate currently sits around 3.75% APY, funded directly by protocol revenue rather than token emissions. sUSDS deposits have grown 85% year-over-year to $3.4 billion, and the instrument has distributed over $250 million in total yield to holders since inception.

SKY is the sole governance token for the Sky Protocol. SKY holders vote on risk parameters, savings rates, collateral types, and allocation decisions for the protocol's balance sheet. A buyback program funded with protocol surplus has deployed over $120 million to date, removing approximately 1.83 billion tokens from circulation.

Stars: A Modular SubDAO Architecture

The most consequential structural change in the Endgame plan is the introduction of Stars — autonomous units that sit alongside the core Sky protocol, each with its own governance, mandate, and balance sheet drawn from Sky's USDS reserves. Stars are designed to operate independently while remaining aligned with Sky's overarching risk parameters and stablecoin infrastructure.

Three Stars are currently active or launched:

Spark focuses on Ethereum-native tokenized assets and runs SparkLend, a lending market where users can borrow against collateral. Spark has its own governance token, SPK.

Grove specializes in collateralized loan obligations and structured credit strategies.

Keel is the Solana-focused Star, launched on September 29, 2025, and the most directly relevant to the Solana ecosystem. Keel operates as an on-chain capital allocator positioned between Sky's USDS stablecoin reserves and Solana-based DeFi protocols. Its mandate is to deploy up to $2.5 billion from Sky's balance sheet into Solana lending markets, real-world asset strategies, and liquidity pools. Early integrations include Kamino, Jupiter, and Raydium — three of Solana's highest-volume protocols spanning lending, swap routing, and liquidity provision. Rune Christensen has stated Keel is designed to become the largest capital allocator on Solana.

USDS on Solana

USDS arrived on Solana in November 2024 via Wormhole's Native Token Transfers framework, giving the Solana DeFi ecosystem access to a decentralized, over-collateralized dollar stablecoin with a built-in savings rate. Native USDS on Solana serves as the foundational liquidity layer that Keel was subsequently built to allocate at scale.

Protocol Performance

Sky's Q1 2026 was its strongest quarter on record, generating $123.79 million in gross protocol revenue and $46.04 million in net protocol surplus. For the first half of 2026 as a whole, the protocol booked $231.66 million in gross revenue and remitted $55.18 million to reserves. Operating expenses dropped dramatically — from $9.89 million in June 2025 to $161,000 in June 2026 — reflecting the transition to a leaner governance and operational structure.

Sky's institutional capital deployment program, called Sky Agents, has placed over $5.5 billion across major asset managers including Janus Henderson ($1.24 billion) and BlackRock ($713 million), embedding USDS-denominated liquidity into traditional finance channels.

Total value locked across the Sky protocol stands at approximately $5.9 billion on DeFiLlama.

Governance and Risk Considerations

SKY governance is open to all token holders, with votes determining collateral risk parameters, savings rate adjustments, emission schedules, and Star mandates. A February 2025 governance attack highlighted ongoing security risks inherent to token-weighted voting systems, and the community has debated further governance hardening since.

USDS includes a freeze function — the ability for designated parties to block specific addresses from transacting with the stablecoin — included as a regulatory compliance measure. This feature has generated community debate about the trade-offs between compliance readiness and the censorship-resistance properties traditionally associated with decentralized stablecoins.

Summary

Sky represents the institutional maturation of MakerDAO's original vision: a decentralized, collateral-backed stablecoin protocol capable of operating at tens of billions in scale. With USDS supply at $10 billion, a profitable and growing revenue base, and a dedicated Solana capital-allocation arm in Keel, Sky occupies a significant position in both Ethereum and Solana DeFi ecosystems. Its modular Stars architecture positions it to expand further across chains and asset classes while keeping core stablecoin issuance and savings functions anchored at the protocol level.