MakerDAO’s MKR Token Jumps 10%, Defying Crypto Market Slump

Maker (MKR), the governance token of decentralized finance (DeFi) lender MakerDAO, jumped more than 10% Thursday, defying slumping cryptocurrency prices as the platform has turned profitable again after tweaking its lending rates.

The token is the best performing digital asset above $100 million market capitalization, CoinDesk price data shows, vastly outperforming the broader crypto market proxy CoinDesk Market Index’s (CMI) 3.5% decline.

While there wasn’t any development to ignite the rally, MakerDAO’s fundamentals have improved recently, as the platform has returned to make profits after a brief increase in spending on incentives, Kunal Goel, senior research analyst at Messari, explained in an interview.

MakerDAO is one of the largest crypto lending protocols and issuer of the $5 billion stablecoin DAI. The platform has increased revenues through investing its vast stablecoin reserves in real-world assets such as U.S. government bonds and lending to banks to capture higher yields in traditional finance as part of a major overhaul called “Endgame.”

The platform earlier this month temporarily hiked rewards for DAI holders to as much as 8%, but the payouts erased Maker’s profit expectations, as CoinDesk reported. The platform lowered rewards and hiked borrowing rates, so it has been profitable again, Goel said.

MKR holders are benefiting from the platform’s profits via Maker’s token buyback scheme introduced last month, which reduces outstanding supply on the market using surplus revenues of the platform’s treasury.

The Maker-adjacent lending platform Spark also enjoyed growth, nearing an all-time high $700 million of total value locked (TVL) on the protocol, DefiLlama data shows. Maker founder Rune Christensen earlier this month unveiled a proposal to roll out Spark’s SPK tokens via airdrop.