Sky, formerly Maker, launched USDS stablecoin on Solana, offering $500K in rewards to early adopters and stablecoin liquidity providers.
Decentralized finance lending and borrowing protocol To capitalize on the rapidly expanding decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem of the blockchain, Sky, formerly known as Maker, has implemented its USDS stablecoin on Solana.
Sky stated in a post on Nov. 19 on the X platform that its USDS was “the first major DeFi-native stablecoin on Solana” and would enable new methods of lending, borrowing, and trading across Solana’s “top DeFi platforms.”
“Today’s launch represents the initial phase of Sky’s strategy to enhance Solana’s DeFi liquidity and [total value locked],” it continued.
Sky announced that it would implement its SkyLink cross-chain bridge for USDS and sUSDS, its “savings” variant of the stablecoin, in the future, subject to governance approval.
USDS Stablecoin is a rebranding of the stablecoin Dai (DAI), designed to maintain a value of 1 US dollar. In August, Sky underwent a rebranding from Maker.
Co-founder Rune Christensen, who was perplexed by the change, suggested that the company revert to its original name. However, four whales rejected the proposal, and Sky remained.
Sky is providing incentives for early adopters and stablecoin liquidity providers on various DeFi protocols to encourage Solana users to adopt the rebranded token.
Kamino Finance users will have the opportunity to access 200,000 USDS in weekly rewards for USDC/USDS liquidity providers and 100,000 USDS in weekly rewards for stablecoin suppliers.
In the interim, suppliers of the stablecoin to the Drift Protocol will be eligible for 100,000 USDS rewards.
Individuals who provide Save Finance with the dollar-pegged asset will have the opportunity to receive a monthly incentive of 400,000 USDS.
The protocol’s native integration via Wormhole’s Native Token Transfer (NTT) “enables seamless USDS Stablecoin operations on Solana,” the Sky team added.
With a market capitalization of $5.3 billion, USDS Stablecoin is the third largest, with a market share of 2.8% in a market that is primarily dominated by Tether and USD Coin, which collectively hold 88% of the market.
According to DefiLlama, DeFi on Solana has experienced substantial growth this year, with the total value secured increasing by 487% year-to-date to $8.34 billion.
Nevertheless, Solana’s popularity has been primarily driven by meme coin speculation, as it is both rapid and cost-effective to generate them on the network using launchers like Pump.fun.
The former governance token, Maker, has experienced a 30% decline since the rebrand when the protocol encouraged holders to convert to its new token, Sky (SKY).
The adoption of the new SKY governance token has been sluggish due to its lack of listing on exchanges.