MakerDAO, the longest-standing DeFi lending protocol and creator of DAI, has surpassed 52% market share in ETH lending, accounting for ETH/stETH deposited into mainnet lending protocols, the company announced on March 6. The January 2024 MakerDAO Protocol Economics Report, released by Steakhouse Financial, highlights the protocol's significant growth, primarily fueled by a 22% increase in ETH lending through crypto-vaults on Spark.
Spark is a community-built DeFi infrastructure sustained by the Spark SubDAO - the first operational SubDAO within the MakerDAO ecosystem. With a direct line of credit from Maker, Spark’s particularly high liquidity and competitive DeFi borrowing rates have driven sustained growth since its launch in May 2023. As a result of this growth, Maker now accounts for over half of the ETH mainnet lending market, up from 43% market share the previous year.
Sam MacPherson, CEO at Phoenix Labs, the R&D company behind Spark, said, "Showcasing what can be achieved by a thriving SubDAO, Spark is continuously evolving and enhancing its products and offerings. Distinguished by our connection to the Maker ecosystem, Spark’s rapid growth has already seen the protocol achieve third position in Lending Total Value Locked (TVL) Rankings as measured by DeFiLlama, underscoring a robust product-market fit at scale."
Other figures from the January report show that gross monthly protocol revenue for Maker stood at 20.8 million DAI, with a significant contribution of 10.3 million DAI coming from crypto-vault revenue. Additionally, revenue from Real-World Assets (RWA) stood at 10.2 million DAI, rising to 10.5 million DAI upon including revenue from the Peg Stability Module (PSM).
Source: Steakhouse SAFU Accounting
Overall, RWA exposure saw a 14% decrease in January 2024 compared to December 2023. Despite this reduction, RWAs constitute a substantial portion of Maker's stability fees, underscoring their ongoing importance to the protocol's financial structure.
Source: Steakhouse SAFU Accounting
"MakerDAO's strong January results demonstrate the effectiveness of the community's dual-engine strategy. As the cryptocurrency market rallies, driving up demand for leverage, the protocol has strategically shifted its balance sheet allocation from T-bills to higher-yielding crypto-backed loans,” said Sébastien Derivaux, co-founder of Steakhouse Financial.
