MakerDAO upgrade stirs controversy following centralization allegation

MakerDAO (MKR), the governance protocol behind the DeFi stablecoin DAI, announced on Tuesday that it has rebranded to Sky, introducing new upgrades to its governance token and stablecoin. Following the announcement, the governance team has been subject to criticism from several crypto community members.

Crypto community expresses concerns that DAI could become centralized

Decentralized protocol MakerDAO was the subject of criticism on Tuesday following the announcement of its brand name change to Sky.

The announcement came earlier in the day after the team released an official statement for the rebranding. They also mentioned the launch of a new governance token, SKY, along with an upgrade of its stablecoin from DAI to USDS.

The rebranding is part of MakerDAO's endgame plan, which introduces USDS and SKY as replacements for DAI and MKR. Users can decide to upgrade from DAI to USDS on a 1:1 basis, and MKR to SKY upgrade on a 1:24,000 exchange. However, both tokens will remain available and unchanged until otherwise stated by the governance team.

The change from MakerDAO to Sky has come with criticism from the crypto community.

Several members have expressed displeasure with this new model, alleging that MakerDAO may be veering toward centralization and censorship. 

The new model allegedly includes a VPN blocker that prevents users from certain parts of the globe from accessing the website and a new freezing function on its stablecoin. A freezing function is popular among centralized stablecoins like USDT and USDC, where the issuer can freeze its assets in the case of potential scams, hacks or for government intervention.

@Lumbergdoteth of PleasrDAO posted on X:

"DAI is now migrating to USDS, a censorable stablecoin that goes against its original vision. RIP DAI, 2017-2024."

@Oxngmi of DefiLlama also posted:

"Rip, looks like the rebrand maker introduced a vpn blocker (makerdao.com doesn't block)."

Meanwhile, after the rebranding, the MakerDAO handle was immediately taken over by an anonymous new user who used the Fuddies NFT image as its display picture.

Hence, users should exercise caution when dealing with the official but new @SkyEcosystem account to avoid falling prey to potential scammers.