Swap SKY at the Best Rate

What is SKY?

SKY is the voting token of the protocol behind USDS and DAI, the decentralized stablecoins that grew out of MakerDAO. The rebrand to Sky was announced in August 2024 as part of the multi-year Endgame restructuring, and the new token and stablecoin went live on Ethereum on 18 September 2024, with each MKR upgradeable to 24,000 SKY.

Sky governance has since made SKY the protocol's sole governance token, and a Delayed Upgrade Penalty applies to MKR that has not converted: starting from 22 September 2025 the amount of SKY received per MKR falls by 1%, and the reduction grows by another percentage point every three months.

How SKY works

Sky runs on executive votes and polls. Proposals are discussed on the governance forum, voted at the governance portal, and executed on-chain through a Chief contract after a 48-hour pause delay that gives the ecosystem time to react to a malicious spell. The Sky Atlas, a living constitution document, defines the scopes and rules that executive votes must cite.

The Staking Engine is the participation layer: staking SKY activates voting or delegation, earns USDS staking rewards at rates governance sets, and allows borrowing USDS against staked positions. There is no exit fee and no fixed lockup.

SKY supply and tokenomics

SKY's quantity derives from MKR's: at 24,000 per MKR the upgrade implies roughly 23.4 billion SKY from the old supply. It is not hard-capped; governance can mint, and reward emissions historically minted new tokens until a May 2025 executive vote switched staking rewards to transfers of existing supply. Since February 2025 the protocol has also used surplus revenue to buy SKY on the market under governance-set parameters.

The backstop role is the durable part of the design. When the system's debt exceeds its buffers, the protocol can mint and auction governance tokens to recapitalize itself, as it did as MakerDAO in March 2020, when 20,980 MKR were auctioned to cover crash-related shortfalls. SKY holders inherit that dilution risk.

Who builds SKY

No company controls the protocol: the Maker Foundation dissolved in 2021 after handing control to token holders, and co-founder Rune Christensen remains the ecosystem's most prominent voice. The Sky Frontier Foundation, established in 2025, supports ecosystem development with a locked, non-voting SKY endowment, while day-to-day work happens in ecosystem teams funded through governance.

How SKY is governed

Everything that matters runs through the vote: stablecoin risk parameters, collateral onboarding, staking reward rates, buyback settings, treasury spending and amendments to the Atlas itself. Voting weight concentrates in delegates and large stakers, and the 48-hour pause delay is the safety margin between a passed vote and its execution.

What people use SKY for

SKY is a working governance asset rather than a fee token, and each of its uses connects to the staking engine in some way.

• Stake in the Staking Engine to vote directly or delegate.
• Earn USDS staking rewards at governance-set rates.
• Borrow USDS against staked SKY positions.
• Upgrade legacy MKR into SKY before the penalty tightens.

SKY risks and considerations

The recapitalization backstop is the structural risk: in a severe shortfall the protocol can mint SKY and dilute holders, exactly as its predecessor did in 2020. Governance risk is real too; parameters, rewards and the buyback program are all revocable by vote, and the 48-hour delay plus the Atlas exist precisely because a hostile or careless vote could do damage.

Complexity is its own hazard: Endgame reorganized a decade-old protocol into agents, scopes and new tokens, and understanding where USDS, DAI, staking and legacy MKR each stand takes work. Regulatory treatment of large dollar stablecoins also remains unsettled in major jurisdictions, and SKY sits at the center of a system built on them.