Is SKY going back to Maker? Why is brand reshaping so difficult?

Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

On September 18, the long-established DeFi leader Maker officially completed its brand upgrade and transformation, renaming itself to Sky while initiating the token migration from "MKR to SKY" and "DAI to USDS."

More than a month later, perhaps due to the original brand Maker being deeply ingrained in people's minds, and the original tokens MKR and DAI having already accumulated a wide range of use cases, the migration process to the new brand and new tokens does not seem to be going smoothly.

Dune data shows that, as of the time of writing, approximately 900 million DAI have completed the migration to USDS, accounting for about 15.5% of the current total supply of DAI (5.8 billion); approximately 91,880 MKR have completed the migration to SKY, accounting for 10.6% of the current circulating supply of MKR (868,478).

At the same time, many users have expressed confusion in the community regarding the utility of the new tokens under the new brand (such as Seal), their functions (such as Activation), supply situations (such as Early Bird airdrops), and ecological positioning (such as the relationship with various Stars like Spark), believing that the brand transformation has instead blurred the protocol's positioning and negatively impacted community consensus.

From the price trend, the market does not seem to be enthusiastic about Maker's upgrade, especially considering that established DeFi protocols like Aave and Uniswap have had notable performances recently, while the price of MKR (which has a fixed exchange ratio with SKY, thus still reflecting the protocol's market value) has been declining.

Last night, perhaps realizing the inadequacy of the brand transformation, Maker founder Rune Christensen published a lengthy post on his personal social media discussing the possibility of reverting the brand back to Maker…

When addressing the "information confusion" in the community, Rune stated: "Using Sky as the name for the protocol, token, and frontend has indeed added some confusion. Now we are clearer than ever about the DeFi community's love for the Maker brand. Users still trust this brand and the stability and security it represents… Many people still commit to holding MKR rather than upgrading to SKY."

In this regard, Rune briefly outlined his preliminary thoughts on restarting the Maker brand. In short, Rune hopes to position Maker as a decentralized protocol for the backend, while positioning Sky as a frontend DeFi product based on Maker, under this framework:

• Maker will continue to serve as a decentralized protocol supporting USDS, DAI, and various StarDAOs, with MKR remaining the sole governance token of Maker. The community can decide whether to maintain the original image of the Maker brand or redesign it.
• Sky will serve as a frontend directly serving DeFi users. Sky will be positioned alongside Spark, both being frontend applications based on the Maker protocol, but with different focuses—Sky will focus solely on the minting/redeeming of the USDS stablecoin, while Spark will be a lending market requiring collateral management.
• Under this framework, USDS will not change and will still be governed by Maker and MKR.

It is clear that Rune now wants to retain the new brand Sky while not wanting to give up the influence accumulated by the Maker brand in the past… In this vision, the only thing not mentioned by Rune seems to be the new governance token SKY, as it appears Rune wants to replace the utility of SKY with MKR.

After outlining his vision, Rune also mentioned that he hopes the community will vote on the potential possibility of restarting the Maker brand, with several proposed options as follows:

• Option 1: Continue to use Sky as the core brand and adhere to the latest brand upgrade strategy.
• Option 2: Restart Maker as the core brand with its original image, restoring MKR as the sole governance token of the DAO.
• Option 3: Reactivate the Maker brand with a new image, maintaining the classic design of the original brand but making slight modifications to better "align" USDS and various Stars.

Rune emphasized that the restoration of the Maker brand is currently only in the preliminary conceptual stage, and further time is needed for the community to discuss thoroughly. A community conference call is planned for October 25. After the community conference call, Rune will consolidate all feedback and advance this topic to a community vote (which will require multiple rounds), with voting expected to start on October 28. If approved, a multi-option vote will be executed in the week starting November 4.

Throughout the history of the cryptocurrency industry, brand transformations are not uncommon, but operations like Maker's "first completely abandoning a brand with a high reputation, then wanting to revert back" are indeed rare… Odaily Planet Daily will continue to monitor the latest developments of this event and provide timely updates.