Dai is an asset-backed, hard currency for the 21st century — the first fully-decentralized stablecoin on Ethereum.

Stablecoins represent a fundamentally new approach to the idea of digital money. A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency that has low volatility against the world’s most important national currencies, potentially unlocking large benefits for the entire Internet.

A decentralized digital economy needs a stablecoin to function. If you borrowed 100 bitcoins two years ago to start a business, just imagine how unhappy you might be right now. Dai is the solution to this problem.

How will Dai work?

1 Dai is worth $1 USD.

An autonomous system of smart contracts specifically designed to respond to market dynamics ensures that this essential stability property is continuously maintained. No one can alter the core mechanics of Dai, making it a safe and predictable form of money.

Each Dai is backed by some valuable asset held in the secure Maker smart contract platform. Anyone can lock their tokens up as collateral and issue Dai against them.

It’s important to note that Dai users don’t need to understand these internal mechanics in order to use Dai; they can be sure that Dai will remain stable at $1 without worrying about the details. However if you are interested in how Maker works, you are more than welcome to check out our documentation.

Mainstream Adoption

As “digital assets,” cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether have unprecedented features: they’re portable, fungible, durable and tradable. They’re certainly valuable. But they’re not quite perfect.

To realize the potential of blockchains, we need a stablecoin. Market-based dapps will directly benefit from the launch of Dai, enabling the ecosystem to approach a new stage of usability.

Augur co-founder Joey Krug shares his insights on Dai:

“When people ask me what the biggest remaining challenges in the space are I tell them scalability and stablecoins. I’m really excited about Maker and Dai as I think stablecoins are key to any sort of financial contracts on Ethereum. Even if you’re right, but still have the volatility of Ether, you can’t speculate on many long term speculative events. I’m excited to be able to use Dai within Augur’s markets!”

Cryptocurrency has captured the imagination of the world; it is the next step in the evolution of money. Maker leads the way with Dai.

What’s Next

We’re excited to launch Dai on December 17th. We are ready to bring a fully decentralized stablecoin to Ethereum.

There are a few primary ways to obtain Dai.

You can create a CDP (Collateralized Debt Position) and deposit ETH as collateral to receive Dai.

DAI will be initially listed on OasisDex and EtherDelta with more exchanges being added starting Q1 of 2018.

For other opportunities, check out our developer documentation.

If you’d like to obtain Dai, sign up here and stay tuned for more announcements from the team.