MakerDAO community votes to approve custody of $1.6B in USDC with Coinbase

Coinbase Prime, an institutional prime brokerage platform for crypto assets, announced on Oct. 24 that it has entered into a partnership with MakerDAO to become a custodian of $1.6 billion worth of the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), of which MakerDAO is the largest single holder.

The MakerDAO community voted to approve the custodianship, which will allow its community to earn a 1.5% reward on its USDC while holding funds with a leading institutional custodian.

The program described the following yield schedule for the USDC onboarded by @MakerDAO:

• 1% APY on the first 100 million USDC.

• 0.1% more APY on each 100 million USDC thereafter.

• Rewards are not to exceed 1.5% APY.

3/

— Maker (@MakerDAO) October 24, 2022

According to Coinbase Prime, this move will not only accrue tangible benefits for the MakerDAO community, but it also exemplifies the platform’s efforts to grow the stablecoin ecosystem. Coinbase expressed certainty that stablecoins will play a key role in creating an open, more efficient, more equitable financial system that bridges the gap between the crypto and fiat worlds.

Jennifer Senhaji, who is in charge of growth and business development at MakerDAO, said:

“The additional monthly revenue generated through this deal enables Maker to further advance its overarching mission to create a global, trustless financial future built on decentralized rails.”

Related: USDC adoption is lagging outside of the United States: Coinbase

Coinbase has a long history of supporting MakerDAO, having provided liquidity to the protocol and helped it with its initial listing of Dai (DAI).

On Oct. 14, Cointelegraph reported that MakerDAO’s revenue plummeted in the third quarter of 2022, caused by a fall in loan demand and few liquidations, while expenses remained high. In a series of tweets, Johnny_TVL, a Messari analyst and co-author of “The State of Maker Q3 2022,” shared that MakerDAO saw its revenue plunge to just over $4 million in Q3, down 86% from the previous quarter.

@MakerDAO third quarter was a painful one for the decentralized lender.

Notables:

– revs fell 86%, collateral ratio down to 1.1

– G-UNI dominating, is this increasing liquidity and on-chain volumes for DAI?

– wBTC reliance on whales/institutions

– RWAs

– Endgame

1/n pic.twitter.com/OrJ7JvFSM3

— Johnny_TVL (@john_tv_locke) October 13, 2022