MakerDAO’s Christensen Turns Optimistic After US Stablecoin Report

MakerDAO founder Rune Christensen seems to have changed his mind about the future of stablecoin regulation in the United States after the Biden administration’s recent report on the topic.

In an interview with CoinDesk TV on Wednesday, the Denmark native said that the report, which was released by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets last week, “turned me very positive on the outlook in the U.S.”

MakerDAO issues the dai stablecoin.

Previously, Christensen was pessimistic about U.S. stablecoin regulation, warning that “we should be ready for the worst,” in a live session on Reddit last month.

The biggest fear decentralized finance (DeFi) projects faced was that regulators would fail to see the advantages of such an innovation and follow China’s example by cracking down, Christensen said, but he noted that the report makes it clear that that’s not the case.

“The potential value of decentralized technology has been recognized … It’s not just being lumped into the same box without really caring about how that could squash innovation,” Christensen said. “The report very clearly shows a recognition that there’s a difference between centralized and decentralized stablecoins.”

In regards to MakerDAO’s future in the U.S., Christensen also sounded optimistic, saying that the report “could result in MakerDAO feeling more comfortable allocating more collateral towards the U.S. economy.”

MakerDAO took a major step toward decentralizing itself in July after it reached a stage where independent core units of contributors could take over most of the tasks that were previously handled by the Maker Foundation.

MakerDAO ranks No. 2 among DeFi projects in total value locked (TVL), with $20 billion tied up in its smart contracts, according to data site DeFi Llama. DAI, the project’s U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin, ranks fourth among such tokens, with an $8.5 billion market capitalization, according to CoinGecko.

DeFi is an umbrella term for lending, trading and other financial services conducted on public blockchains, without traditional intermediaries such as banks. Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to hold their value against a mainstream asset such as the U.S. dollar, play a critical role in DeFi as a popular form of collateral and loan proceeds.