Maker governance is voting to invest $500 million in US Treasury bills

MakerDAO, the issuer of the Dai (DAI) stablecoin, is currently voting on how to allocate 500 million DAI ($500 million) of treasury funds into investments in US Treasury bills and bonds, the protocol announced on Monday.

The governance vote is the result of the community agreeing to an asset allocation for a liquid bond strategy and execution. Maker says this asset allocation introduces a new real-world asset vault. Maker vaults allow owners to deposit collateral to generate the DAI stablecoin.

The reason this is happening is because Maker’s current treasury is largely held in stablecoins that generate little-to-no yield. By investing excess funds elsewhere, the hope is to reduce counterparty and credit risk.

This new vault will hold Maker’s investment in liquid bond strategies. As part of the previous agreement, the community chose US short-term Treasuries and investment-grade (IG) corporate bonds as the preferred asset allocation options.

The ongoing vote is whether to allocate the $500 million completely to US short Treasuries or an 80%-20% split between short Treasuries and IG corporate bonds.

The 80-20 split option is currently accounting for the most votes — almost 99% as of the time of publishing — according to data from the voting page. Voting will end on June 30 at 11 a.m. EDT.

Private wholesale lender Monetalis will create the trust that will hold the bonds for Maker but only Maker will have sole control of the funds of the legal structure. The Maker Governance will also be able to liquidate the investment via an executive vote, the project stated.

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