Maker’s co-founder proposes roadmap for Endgame rollout.
MakerDAO is gearing up to accelerate the adoption of its Endgame overhaul.
On March 12, Rune Christensen, the co-founder of MakerDAO, published a rough timeline for the phases of Endgame’s adoption. The document says MakerDAO will commence rolling out a new brand, stablecoin, governance token, website and app, and yield farming products in quick succession beginning in Summer 2024.
Spark, MakerDAO’s DAI-focused Aave fork, will also introduce new products alongside a governance token and DAO as part of Endgame.
“In Phase 1 of Endgame Launch all of the major features of Endgame are released in rapid succession,” Christensen wrote. “The goal is to quickly get a fully featured virtuous cycle where SubDAOs, tokenomics, the new brand, and new user acquisition funnels all work together to produce exponential growth of Dai usage.”
Endgame was first proposed by Christensen in June 2022. The plan was approved by governance just a few months later, however, the vote drew criticism for tokens delegated by Christensen representing an outsized share of the assets mobilized for voting.
Endgame sought to expand the protocol’s utility and address many of the challenges encountered following MakerDAO’s venture into decentralization following the dissolution of the MakerDAO Foundation. At the time, MakerDAO wasn’t operating at a profit and was struggling to reconcile its increasing complexity with voter apathy and internal factionalism.
In order to rectify these problems, Endgame proposed reorganizing MakerDAO into a series of subDAOs with their own token farming and governance structures, in addition to revamping its DAI stablecoin and MKR governance token.
The price of MKR is up 9% in 24 hours in response to Christensen’s post. MakerDAO is the fourth-largest DeFi protocol with a total value locked of $9.7 billion, according to CoinGecko.
Endgame Phase 1
Endgame will begin with the month-long rollout of a new brand for the MakerDAO protocol starting with the launch of a promotional website. Christensen said updating the brand is intended to better communicate Maker’s core values and products.
Maker’s new governance token and stablecoin will then launch, with users able to convert their existing MKR and DAI into the tokens to access Maker’s forthcoming new features. The new tokens can also be converted back to MKR and DAI.
Christensen DAI and the new stablecoin will target different utilities, with “DAI focusing on crypto-native use-cases and NewStable focusing on mass adoption.” The new stablecoin can also be used to farm the new governance token, excluding U.S.-based and VPN users. The new governance token will also redominate MKR at a rate of one-to-24,000.
Maker will follow up with the launch of a new website and app intended to bolster the user-friendliness of the protocol, simplifying users’ ability to access the DAI Savings Rate (DSR) and token farming features.
Lockstate Engine
Maker will then introduce its Lockstate Engine (LSE), a new feature designed to incentivize long-term governance token lock-ups by distributing “30% of all protocol surplus income earned by the Maker Protocol” to LSE depositors who chose to receive stablecoins yield.
LSE depositors can also choose to receive a share of 30% of SPK, the forthcoming native token of Spark, earmarked for yield farming by opting to receive SPK yields.
However, LSE depositors will incur a 15% exit fee when unlocking their tokens, with the protocol burning all exit fees received.
MakerDAO will also launch on a leading Layer 2 network alongside the deployment of a bridge between the L2 and Ethereum during Phase 1.
Spark Upgrades
The Endgame roadmap’s first phase will also bring major updates to Spark, MakerDAO’s money market lending protocol, starting with the launch of MakerDAO’s first subDAO in the form of SparkDAO. SparkLend has emerged as the ninth-largest DeFi protocol with a total value locked of $3.9 billion since launching in May 2023, according to DeFi Llama.
Phase 1 of Endgame will include the launch of various farms allowing the farming of its upcoming SPK token. Current Spark users will also qualify for the future SPK airdrop. The rate of SPK tokens distributed through farming will halve every two years from 1 billion initially, with 4 billion tokens earmarked for issuance over 10 years.
Spark will also introduce support for real-world assets (RWAs) leveraging MakerDAO’s existing RWA infrastructure. “Having access to RWA and the yield available in traditional finance complements the on-chain lending business model well, as it allows Spark to shift its exposure to whichever environment has the best risk-adjusted return,” Christensen said.
Spark will also offer yields via perpetual swap market mechanisms such as Ethena’s USDe, which Christensen describes as a “low-risk yield opportunity” within the context of bullish market conditions.
MakerDAO’s Multichain Expansion
Christensen said Endgame’s second phase will focus on scaling up its new architecture.
Phase 2 will include the launch of six subDAOs and expansions onto multiple Layer 2s such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base plus leading Layer 1s including Solana.
Maker will also introduce autonomous governance for each of the six subDAOs during Phase 2.
Maker to launch Layer 1 network
Endgame will then move on to its third phase, in which MakerDAO plans to deploy a standalone Layer 1 network hosting MakerDAO’s core token and governance mechanisms. Despite the forthcoming network, Christensen said Maker will remain within the Ethereum ecosystem.
“NewChain is an extension of the existing Maker ecosystem, and the launch of NewChain does not mean that Maker is leaving Ethereum,” Christensen said. “All of the user-facing products that exist on Ethereum today will remain, and more will be launched.”
“When NewChain is live, the SubDAO ecosystem will gain the ability to scale infinitely, with many more SubDAOs getting created at a much higher frequency,” he added.
