MakerDAO Founder Calls for Rebranding of DAI Stablecoin

MakerDAO’s DAI stablecoin could be due for a makeover.

In a call with community members on Thursday, Rune Christensen, the founder of Ethereum’s MakerDAO, said the stablecoin-issuing protocol should rebrand its flagship token to be more understandable for “normal people.”

DAI, the fourth-largest stablecoin, with a market cap near $5 billion – and the only top stablecoin backed by a basket of assets, including other cryptocurrencies – suffers from bad branding that could be inhibiting its growth, Christensen said during a call to discuss the protocol’s decentralization plan, called “Endgame.”

“What’s the right name for a stablecoin if you’re going to try to appeal to normal people? It has to have USD in it,” Christensen said on the call, which CoinDesk attended.

But that moniker would imply the token would stay pegged to the dollar, Christensen said, and there’s no guarantee a peg would hold.

The discussion of a rebranding came amid a broader debate about Christensen’s “Endgame” proposal for MakerDAO, itself a complex topic that Christensen admitted few understand. He said the move created a broader opportunity to rebrand MakerDAO and make it more approachable.

He called for “a complete rebrand, complete new name, complete new look, completely different approach to user acquisition,” saying it's “the only way to take control of the narrative.”

MakerDAO should position DAI as a currency that users can generate yield with, he added.

And DAI should be seen as “the safest and most reliable gamified crypto of all,” he argued.

Not all attendees were convinced by Christensen's arguments.