Structure and history
The protocol was founded in 2014 by Rune Christensen as MakerDAO; the first DAI was issued on December 18, 2017 (more on the launch in "History of Stablecoins"). On August 27, 2024, the protocol officially rebranded to Sky as part of its "Endgame" restructuring plan, and on September 18, 2024, it launched a new governance token, SKY, and a new stablecoin, USDS — both convert with the original MKR and DAI at a fixed rate in either direction through smart contracts. Christensen is described as co-founder and architect of Sky, but the protocol has no formal CEO role: decisions are made by SKY holder votes. In August 2025, the Sky Frontier Foundation was formed as an independent nonprofit supporting ecosystem development (including tooling such as the Sky Agent Framework); the organization itself states it is not affiliated with, and does not control, the Sky protocol.
Products
The protocol issues the DAI/USDS stablecoin pair (see the separate profile) and the SKY governance token (convertible from the original MKR). Its ecosystem also includes the Spark lending protocol, whose borrow rate partly funds the Sky Savings Rate yield paid to USDS holders.
Governance and transparency
Unlike Circle or Tether, Sky has no single legal issuing entity with external reserve attestation: the composition of the collateral backing DAI and USDS is publicly visible on-chain in real time through trackers such as MakerBurn and DaiStats. Decisions on risk parameters, yield rates, and collateral composition are made by SKY token holder votes on the protocol's governance platform.
Economics
Over the years the protocol has diversified its collateral toward real-world assets: allocations to short-dated US Treasuries run through external managers such as BlockTower, and custody/execution for the institutional side of its infrastructure touches companies such as Fireblocks, BitGo, Anchorage, and Coinbase Custody. Per third-party on-chain analytics, real-world assets exceeded $1.5 billion of collateral by early 2026 and became the protocol's largest single revenue source — coin-level reserve details are covered in the "DAI and USDS" article.