Ethereum (ETH) gained a massive new use case in the past year - as the chief collateral in decentralized finance schemes. The most notable one, Maker DAO, produces the DAI stablecoin, which grew its supply more than 20 times in the past 18 months.
During peak times, the Maker DAO held as much as 2% of the ETH supply as collateral. Now, the organization holds around 1.3% of all ETH, to the tune of 1.5 million coins. The collateral is usually supplying more ETH value than the DAI issued, making the stablecoin over-collateralized for extra security.
Producing DAI allows ETH holders to generate more liquidity and influence in the crypto ecosystem, while keeping access to their ETH. So far, DAI has not gone through catastrophic events that would destroy or devalue t...