S1E17 Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) and DeFi with Rune Christensen, Founder of MakerDAO

MakerDAO predates Ethereum and Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs) are one of the least understood but potentially most disruptive implementations of Blockchain technology. Rune Christensen talks through the history of MakerDAO, the mechanics of the stablecoin, voting, lending and the potential move towards accepting tokenised real-work collateral. We also discuss why Central Banks are interested, how the crypto crash only strengthened the MakerDAO platform, and how DAOs could be applied in government and legal services. 

*Apologies for the sound quality - Rune was recording in a very echoey room*

In this episode we cover:

- MakerDAO's history from the pre-Ethereum era up to the $250m capitalisation it has today

- Why Argentina and Buenos Aires has become an early cluster for MakerDAO adoption

- The mechanics of the DAI Stablecoin, Vaults, and MKR Governance Tokens

- Examples uses of DAI loans: buying a car, mortgage refinancing or buying more crypto

- How MakerDAO solves the principle agent problem by having MKR holders accountable for risk taking

- How to manage the issue of voter turnout in a DAO, how votes are initiated, and how to cultivate a community

- The upcoming vote on using real world, tokenised assets as collateral such as ConsolFreight (Trade Finance) & PaperChain (Music Royalties)

- Launching just before a crash: how the worst possible market conditions actually proved MakerDAO's robustness

- Feedback and interest from the US Federal Reserve and People's Bank of China in DAOs and DeFi 

- How to look at DAOs from a legal and regulatory perspective

- Other areas where DAOs can be disruptive: Global monetary policy, government, anti-corruption, legal services

- The one thing that Blockchain does better than anything else

Links to topics discussed on the episode:

Rune's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/runebentsenchristensen/

MakerDAO: https://makerdao.com

Maker Forum: https://forum.makerdao.com

ConsulFreight: https://www.consolfreight.io

PaperChain: https://paperchain.io/