MakerDAO co-founder floats using Solana’s code to build new chain

Rune Christensen, MakerDAO’s co-founder, suggested that a forthcoming appchain dedicated to the DeFi lending protocol could be built using the codebase of Solana.

That new appchain is part of the so-called Endgame plan, as previously reported by Blockworks. The plan is intended to improve MakerDAO governance and ensure that the protocol itself becomes more self-sustainable. It’s been in the works since May 2022, with the “Maker Constitution” receiving approval earlier this year. 

Endgame itself is split into five phases. The final phase — Phase 5 — will deploy a new chain, now known as NewChain, as a hub for the backend tools supporting MakerDAO. 

Read more: Takeaways From MakerDAO’s 5-phase Endgame Update

“The most important reason for why NewChain is needed, is that it will allow the ecosystem to use hard forks to gracefully recover from the most severe form of governance attacks or technical failures,” Christensen wrote in an ecosystem discussion post on Friday. 

“After having researched all the different options available to act as the foundation for NewChain, I believe that the Solana stack is the most promising codebase to explore further,” Christensen went on to write. 

He argued that the code is “engineered well and benefits from being designed long after the bottlenecks and challenges of blockchains were already well understood.”

If the MakerDAO community voted in favor of the proposal, Christensen suggested that a “symbiotic relationship” be formed between MakerDAO and the existing Solana community. 

This could be achieved through maintaining an independent client or providing funding to the Solana ecosystem, he said.

“It would be strategically beneficial to ensure there is a Two-Stage Gravity Bridge from NewChain to Solana alongside the bridge from NewChain to Ethereum,” he wrote. “It would also provide a useful boost to the network effect of the entire multichain economy.” 

Aside from a Solana fork, Christensen argued that the only other contender for launching Maker’s new app chain would be the Cosmos SDK.

The downside, he said, is that the Cosmos ecosystem is not as efficient as Solana, which may make it more expensive to maintain over time. 

“Cosmos also doesn’t have a strong central foundation organization like Solana has, which could be either a good or bad thing,” Christensen wrote.

---

Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.