Whale-powered vote keeps DeFi protocol ‘Sky’ from returning to ‘Maker’ brand

A proposal to rebrand the decentralized finance lending and borrowing protocol “Sky” back to “Maker” was rejected in a governance vote heavily influenced by a few major stakeholders.

“Sky ecosystem governance has concluded an onchain vote to continue using the Sky brand as the primary backend protocol of the ecosystem. This decision supports the ongoing transition from MKR to SKY and establishes Sky as the core brand,” stated the DeFi protocol team in an X post published on Nov. 8. 

MakerDAO governance vote dominated by whales

The governance vote held on Nov. 4 was recently completed. The “Keep the Sky brand as the backend protocol brand” option prevailed, with 79% in favor and pledging 63,874 MKR.

Just 18.5% voted for recentering the Maker brand with a limited brand refresh with 14,864 MKR tokens pledged. 

However, just four whales constituted the lion’s share of the voting power, with a combined 62,452 MKR, or 98% of the total for the sticking with Sky option. One whale pledged almost all MKR tokens for the other option to recenter the Maker brand. 

MakerDAO’s founder stayed neutral and urged focus on growth

MakerDAO’s founder, Rune Christensen, remained neutral on the branding controversy, instead urging the community to resolve it and focus on growth. Additionally, Christensen noted that the most important thing is to make a decision and focus on what matters, which is the product.

According to Christensen, changing the name to Sky was not merely cosmetic. He noted that it was part of Maker’s ‘Endgame’ strategy, which introduced new products, like the USDS stablecoin.

After facing confusion and negative feedback following the August rebrand, the Sky community debated returning to its original Maker name. Protocol co-founder Rune Christensen proposed a discussion on the platform’s governance forum to “recenter the Maker brand,” proposing three options at the time.  

At the beginning of the week, Framework Ventures co-founder Vance Spencer said that SKY had not yet had a chance to launch correctly. He noted that it is not supported on major exchanges, and platforms like CoinGecko did not change MKR’s market cap to SKY. Moreover, the rebrand timing coincided with one large fund selling its MKR and a general market downturn.