MakerDAO looks to invest $500M into ‘minimal risk’ treasuries and bonds

MakerDAO is currently voting on a proposal aimed at helping it weather the bear market and utilize untapped reserves by investing 500 million Dai stablecoins into a combination of US treasuries and bonds.

Following a straw poll in a governance 'Signal Request,' the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) members now must decide whether the dormant DAI should go entirely into short-term treasuries or split 80% into treasuries and 20% into corporate bonds.

MakerDAO is the governing body of the Maker protocol, which issues U.S. dollar-pegged Dai stablecoins in exchange for user deposits of Ether (ETH), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), and nearly 30 other cryptocurrencies.

This proposal represents a major step for Maker DAO as it signals its intent to extend beyond the crypto realm and earn yield from traditional “safe” financialinvestments with its flagship DAI.

MakerDAO allows participants vote on proposals by staking their MKR. So far, the option to split the Dai between treasuries and bonds has 99.3% Maker (MKR) token support, albeit from just 12 voters. Governance participation at Maker is currently at its lowest level in 2022 with 169,196 MKR tokens staked.

The poll ends on June 30 at 12pm ET, leaving just a short amount of time for other voters to pick a side, abstain, or reject the options.

Once an option is chosen, European wholesale lender Monetalis will provide MakerDAO access to the financial instruments it wants. Monetalis CEO Allan Pedersen issued the Signal Request in the forum with options that his firm could provide the DAO.

The firm has a goal of transitioning to low carbon resource efficiency, as per the UN’s definition.

The DAO’s decision to invest such a large amount of funds is based on recommendations by several members who believe that deploying the unused funds could help boost the protocol’s bottom line with minimal risk.

Member of MakerDAO’s Strategic Finance Core Unit Sebastien Derivaux posited in a June 20 assessment of the allocation’s feasibility that although the amount in question seems relatively high, it should be a safe choice for the DAO.

“An investment of 500M DAI in this context, that is expected to remain liquid and low volatility, is therefore not a significant risk for the DAI peg nor the solvency of MakerDAO.”

Derivaux suggested that the two options currently being voted on were the best of the five that were up for debate.

Despite the landmark move for Maker, MKR is down 1.6% over the past 24 hours and trading at $964.71 according to CoinGecko.