Checking Out a16z Crypto’s Investment in Maker (MKR)

Founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz (known as "a16z") is a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, California.

They’re famous for investments in companies like Facebook, Twitter, AirBnB, and Ripple.

And this year they launched a dedicated crypto fund – a16z crypto – with $300 million
.
Recently, a16z crypto took a $15 million position in Maker (MKR).

Maker is a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, and is often referred to as MakerDAO.

MakerDAO is the company behind the Dai stablecoin.

According to Maker, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have a high degree of volatility. Dai is a solution to that volatility.

It’s a cryptocurrency that using collateral to back its value and interest rate mechanisms to stabilize its price.

It’s similar to tether (USDT), both want to maintain a stable price of $1, but there are key differences.

USDT is fiat collateralized, meaning its backed 1:1 by fiat money like the dollar.

DAI is backed by crypto collateral, specifically ether. And it’s not 1:1. For every $1 in DAI you want you need to put up $1.50 worth of ETH.

And Maker uses price stability mechanisms to keep the price pegged at $1. For all the details check out the white paper.

So far it’s appearing to work pretty well.

MakerDAO also has its MKR coin. Its main purpose is for governance of the Maker platform.

A16z Crypto is investing in Maker because it believes stablecoins will be a key feature for price stability in the blockchain ecosystem. And that can unlock many use cases.

What do you think of MakerDAO?

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