MakerDAO, the protocol behind Dai, was launched by Danish developer Rune Christensen (who studied biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen, then economics at Copenhagen Business School). His goal was to build a decentralized stablecoin held stable purely by smart contracts — not a bank or a company — in response to crypto's extreme volatility.
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December 18, 2017: the first version (Single-Collateral Dai, SAI) launches on Ethereum — users lock ETH as collateral in a Collateralized Debt Position (later renamed a “Maker Vault”) to generate Dai; overcollateralization plus automated liquidation keeps the dollar peg, with no bank involved.
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The name “Dai” derives from the Chinese character 貸, meaning “to lend / to provide capital.”
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2018: a $12 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
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November 2019: Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD) — the collateral set expands beyond ETH to other assets (e.g. BAT, USDC), and the Dai Savings Rate (DSR) is introduced.
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March 2020: the “Black Thursday” market crash put the system under serious stress, leading to protocol adjustments.
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July 2021: Christensen announces MakerDAO and Dai are fully decentralized (the Maker Foundation dissolves).
Important distinction from fiat-backed stablecoins (USDT, USDC): Dai*'s collateral isn't bank cash or government bonds — it's crypto assets locked by users themselves in smart contracts. There'*s no central issuing company behind it.