Nikolai Mushegian, the co-founder of the protocol behind stablecoin DAI, MakerDAO, has revealed his commitment toward Web3/DeFi projects by donating a whopping sum for the establishment of research program for decentralized applications/protocols.

Mushegian in a tweet said he pledged a total donation of 10,000 MKR (circa $4,224,244 at the time of writing) to Carnegie Mellon University for the creation of a Web3/DeFi research program.

The co-creator of the decentralized lending facility built on the Ethereum blockchain stated that he made the first donation, 3,200 MKR, on new year eve (2019-12-31), and he also pledged to gift another 6,800 MKR to the university with a space of 3 years, all in the name of establishing the decentralized protocol research program.

Within the social platform Twitter, students at the university have begun showing interest in the program.

Nikolai in another statement mentioned that the research process is now progressing, as the agenda would be drafted and set in the next few weeks. Also a concrete plan of action is to be published.

The funds would be dedicated to sponsoring Master’s and Ph.D students who are working in areas related to the research.

Nikolai said he feels he need to play a great role in assisting teeming big players and tech giants in the space hence made the donation as good karma.

Carnegie Mellon University, a private Pittsburgh-based research university, is known for grooming world-class experts in several areas that would become critical in the coming years, especially algorithm design and game theory.

In the last 5 years, players who work on web3 research put their work into the public domain automatically without a second thought because relying on IP law was not really necessary due to the ease of monetizing marginal improvement, among other reasons.

Also due to the fact that developers were enticed by permissive licenses in the network-effect land-grab, there was no threat from banks and tech giants.

Nikolai said the era has passed, urging developers to get prepared for “years-long multimillion-dollar battle over whether ‘send crypto over email’ is patentable.”