Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has sold MakerDAO’s MKR tokens worth around $580,000 USD. This move followed the announcement by Rune Christensen, co-founder and CEO of MakerDAO, about the launch of a new chain on the Solana-based platform.
Buterin engaged in discussions on the Discord channel of rival stablecoin platform Reflexer Finance. He made some suggestions regarding competition and enhancements for the leading stablecoin platform, particularly if MakerDAO takes unusual directions.
MakerDAO, known for its stablecoin DAI, is currently working on a protocol upgrade named “Endgame.” In recent days, Christensen promoted the launch of a new blockchain for Maker, called NewChain, based on Solana’s underlying code.
Solana’s co-founder Anatoly Ykovenko clarified that the proposed new Maker chain “has nothing to do with Solana’s main network.”
Buterin expressed dissatisfaction with the decision of Maker’s co-founder to sell his MKR holdings after Christensen tweeted about the new chain. Buterin sold 500 MKR for 353.4 ETH, equivalent to around $579,000 USD, using the CoW protocol, according to Etherscan data.
He also visited Reflexer Finance’s Discord channel, encouraging the community to expand their collateral options to Ethereum-based liquidity betting tools. Reflexer allows mining the stablecoin RAI by using Ethereum as collateral. Unlike DAI, RAI doesn’t target any specific fixed value; its price is determined by ETH’s price and demand for RAI.
Liquidity Staking Derivatives (LSD) are tokens representing the amount of ETH staked in contracts based on Ethereum proof-of-stake.
Buterin emphasized the importance of active community governance in supplementing support for “ETH staking.” He further mentioned that the community should “intentionally” start with “ETH staking forms that aren’t dominant (besides Lido).”
He continued to recommend to the Reflexer community that if MakerDAO takes “strange directions,” Reflexer can improve by offering more collateral options than MakerDAO. However, Buterin added that there’s value in maintaining some types of standards, where “ETH is collateral.”
Following Vitalik’s endorsement for the community, the price of Reflexer Finance’s governance token (FLX) surged by nearly 75% overnight.
After a sharp decline yesterday, MakerDAO’s MKR token is currently trading stably at around $1,120 USD.