Maker Passes First Vote to Increase U.S. Treasury Bond Holdings to $1.25B

According to a March 15 Twitter thread, Maker’s governance community first voted in support of expanding US Treasury bond holdings to $1.25 billion. If fully authorized, the idea would more than treble Maker’s existing $500 million in Treasury bond holdings to $1.25 billion.

Maker first began investing in US Treasury bonds in October 2022 as part of an upgrade plan known as MIP65. The most recent plan lifts the debt cap for those investments, increasing the amount that Maker may invest in liquid bonds.

Manufacturer claims that the $750 million made available by the scheme will be spent on US Treasury bonds with maturities evenly distributed over six months. This strategy will ensure that the Treasuries mature biweekly, $62.5 million at a time.

The motion to raise the debt ceiling was approved with 77.13% of votes (76,936 MKR) in favor and 22.86% of votes (22,799 MKR) against. A tiny number of voters (12 MKR) remained undecided on the issue.

GFX Labs, the London Business School Blockchain, the analytics business Flipside Crypto, and ConsenSys were among the notable votes. Maker governance must still approve the move in a subsequent executive vote. The update will then be distributed straight to Maker Protocol.

Maker’s move to invest in Treasury bonds is tied to its efforts to become more robust following the temporary loss of parity with the dollar of its decentralized stablecoin, DAI.

DAI dipped to $0.89 on March 11 before regaining $1.00 on March 13. The bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank precipitated the depeg, which largely damaged Circle’s USDC stablecoin but also other significant stablecoins. DAI was particularly affected since it leverages DAI-USDC swaps in its Peg-Stability Module (PSM).

To diversify away from USDC, the project will spend a portion of the USDC in its PSM to purchase the $750 million in Government bonds.