Dai 

DAI Price

What is the Dai (DAI) stablecoin?

Dai is a decentralized, overcollateralized stablecoin soft-pegged to the US dollar, launched in December 2017 by MakerDAO. Users generate DAI by locking collateral in Maker Protocol vaults, so the peg rests on collateral health rather than on fiat reserves held by a company. Multi-Collateral DAI and the current Ethereum contract went live in November 2019. DropsTab classifies DAI under Stablecoin.

How does Dai maintain its peg to the US dollar?

The peg is soft and maintained by the Maker/Sky stability mechanism. Three levers keep DAI near its dollar target: stability fees charged on vault loans, the Peg Stability Module (PSM) for swaps close to $1, and the savings rate that absorbs or releases supply. No company holds a fiat reserve matching DAI 1:1; collateral levels and arbitrage do the balancing.

What collateral backs Dai?

Maker Protocol vaults accept ETH, stETH, stablecoins, and tokenized US Treasuries as collateral. The mix has historically been dominated by tokenized US Treasuries (RWA), USDC, and ETH/stETH. DropsTab does not record exact current collateral percentages. Overcollateralization means each DAI in circulation is backed by collateral worth more than $1.

Is Dai a coin or a token?

DAI is a token: an ERC-20 contract on Ethereum with no blockchain of its own. Per DropsTab data, Dai contracts are deployed on 27 networks, including Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, Optimism, Solana, BSC, Gnosis, Linea, Scroll, and Unichain. The Ethereum mainnet contract at 0x6b175474e89094c44da98b954eedeac495271d0f is verifiable on Etherscan.

What is Dai's total supply and maximum supply?

DAI has no fixed maximum supply. Issuance is elastic: new DAI is minted when a vault loan is drawn and burned when the loan is repaid, so total supply rises and falls with DeFi credit demand. Because the count drifts with every mint and repayment, the live supply figure is shown in the supply panel rather than as a fixed number.

Does Dai have vesting schedules or fundraising rounds?

DAI has no vesting schedule, cliff periods, or insider allocations. The stablecoin also had no ICO or pre-sale: MakerDAO funded development through the MKR governance-token distribution and protocol collateral revenue. Because DAI is minted against collateral rather than pre-allocated to investors, holders face no unlock-driven inflation risk. Peg risk comes from collateral health and conversion outflows instead.

Where can you buy and trade Dai?

Per DropsTab data, DAI trades across 200+ spot markets. Centralized venues include Kraken (DAI/EUR, DAI/USD, DAI/USDT), Coincheck (DAI/JPY), and Bitbank (DAI/JPY). DEX liquidity is deep and multichain: Uniswap, Balancer V2, Sushiswap, Aerodrome, PancakeSwap, Quickswap, and LFJ. The most common quote pairs are USDC, USDT, and WETH. DropsTab lists no derivative markets for DAI. CEX availability narrowed after Binance and Coinbase converted customer DAI balances to USDS during 2026.

What is the difference between Dai and USDS?

USDS is the successor stablecoin introduced when MakerDAO rebranded to Sky on August 27, 2024. DAI and USDS are designed to hold the same $1 value and convert 1:1 with no fee through the Sky converter. EU regulatory pressure in 2025-2026, including delistings of stablecoins outside the MiCA framework, accelerated the migration. DAI remains live and trading. Governance sits with the SKY token, and MKR upgrades to SKY at a fixed 1:24,000 ratio through a one-way contract.

How does Dai compare to USDC and USDT?

All three target the same $1 value, but they are built differently. DAI is decentralized and overcollateralized: every unit is minted against Maker Protocol vault collateral (ETH, stETH, tokenized US Treasuries, and even USDC), with no company holding a fiat reserve. USDC and USDT are the most common quote assets paired against DAI, and DAI trades against both across its 200+ spot markets. For how DAI differs from its own successor stablecoin, see the USDS question above.

Can you earn yield on Dai?

DAI itself carries no savings rate. The Sky Savings Rate accrues to sUSDS, and Sky reward programs have distributed rewards in USDS and SKY; those earning opportunities do not extend to plain DAI. Holding DAI generates no protocol yield by default. The fee-free 1:1 path into USDS is the on-chain route to the Sky savings products.