Does anyone more knowledgeable than me know if the integration of Ethena into Spark has direct or indirect implications for DAI (and sDAI) on Gnosis? Personally, I don’t think Ethena is trustworthy (overall too many risk vectors and not battle-tested in a bearmarket) and the increased weaving of Ethena into a Maker (Sky) product doesn’t sit well with me at first glance.
There also seems to be a conflict of interest with the Spark founder.
+1 from me, would be great if someone can provide some in-depth thoughts on this.
My high level view is that it makes DAI/USDS less robust overall, but helps to maintain an attractive sDAI/sUSDS rate over a full cycle (long term average of ETH/BTC funding rate is 10-15% across major exchanges), as the current savings rate leads to Maker/Sky running at a deficit.
In addition to the USDe risk itself, they’re also adding duration risk and third party protocol risk (Pendle) by buying PT tokens expiring in May…
The inclusion of Ethena into Spark may have indirect consequences for DAI and sDAI on Gnosis as Spark may increase its exposure to Ethena-backed assets. There is no known direct connection, but systemic risk from Ethena could have implications for Spark, and therefore for those Maker-related products. Your comments regarding trust and potential conflicts of interest regarding the Spark founder are reasonable, and they will be prevalent in the mind as the ecosystem becomes more intertwined. If the two ecosystems become deeper integrated, transparency and risk control will be important.