Investors and developers who contribute to the ethereum-based programmatic lending protocol MakerDAO are debating a fourth increase to the amount charged to users of its U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin DAI.
As a result of persistent imbalances in the tokenâs supply and demand since February, DAI has been trading below $1 on exchanges â hitting lows of $0.96 on major cryptocurrency exchange platforms such as Coinbase.
Issued via an open-source software, DAI uses what is known as aâStability Feeâ that charges an outstanding fee proportional to the amount of DAI being returned by the user. The fee can be paid in either MKR tokens or DAI. Holders of MKR, however, also participate in decision-making on how the protocol that produces DAI should function and âstakeâ their tokens in votes.
MKR holders have ratified three different proposals to raise this fee incrementally in the past few weeks. The last increase, executed on Friday, was by far the largest in the history of the project, raising the Stability Fee to 3.5 percent and prompting some concerns about whether the MakerDAO protocol can support a stable cryptocurrency.
In a weekly governance meeting today, risk management lead at the MakerDAO Foundation Cyrus Younessi noted that DAI prices as a result of Fridayâs fee hike were âtrending in the general right direction pointing to a chart depicting DAI market value weighted across âseveral different cryptocurrency exchanges.â
However, pointing out that over-the-counter trades of DAI have been unaffected by this fee hike and persist well below the dollar mark, cryptocurrency trader and partner at blockchain-focused VC fund Distributed Capital Partners, Joseph Quintillian, said:
âIâm not seeing good trades above one or even close to $1 ⦠Weâre kind of in this $0.95 to $0.99 [over-the-counter range] but nothing over $0.99 yet.â
Echoing this sentiment, head of research at crypto asset manager Wyre Capital, Louis Aboud-Hogben, also said during todayâs governance meeting that while âspot prices have moved up a bit ⦠we havenât been able to clear any trades.â
Aboud-Hogben added:
âItâs important we donât get lured into a false sense of security here.â
As such, founder of the MakerDAO Foundation Rune Christensen was of the mindset that stronger, more pointed action was warranted by MakerDAO token holders.
âIf weâve seen no effect, Iâm of the opinion that we should do a 4 percent increase,â said Christensen, adding that former Stability Fee increases thus far have had only âsuperficial effects on markets.â
Wanting to move ahead with some sort of actionable vote âas soon as possible,â Christensen suggested a vote for a more measured increase of 2 percent from the current 3.5 percent. The suggestion, however, was regarded as too hasty by some community members.
Pushing back on setting âarbitraryâ numerical values to the next potential fee hike without proper data analysis, Richard Brown â head of core community at the MakerDAO Foundation â directed the discussion to be further debated on the community Reddit channel.
âLetâs make sure this debate doesnât peeter out and that it continues on our Reddit channel ⦠[Our decision] needs to be scientifically-based,â emphasized Brown.
Cyrus Younessi at a former MakerDAO Scientific Governance and Risk Meeting via YouTube
