A new governance-minimized alternative to MakerDAO is announced

Ameen Soleimani, creator of MolochDAO and Spankchain released a specification for MetaCoin, a crypto-collateralized stablecoin designed to remove some perceived weaknesses in MakerDAO. It will utilize a similar two-token model as Maker and Dai but will create some structural changes to the system. For example, ETH is the only available collateral and rather than using the Maker oracle system to determine liquidations, MetaCoin will create a token-curated registry of fiat-backed stablecoins and pull their volume-weighted average price. There will also be no human element of setting interest rates, instead, an algorithmic controller will change the rates such that 1 COIN = $1. The free-floating governance token, Meta, will be used to initiate an Emergency Shutdown and will be purchased on the open market when interest is paid back on outstanding loans. Meta be distributed between members of the MolochDAO and MetaCartel DAO as well as a new organization SweatDAO which will assign shares based on new contributions.

Why it matters

• The amount of value locked in DeFi recently surpassed $1 billion. While this is an impressive feat, it shows the amount of risk inherent in a monetary system that’s so dependent on a single asset - Dai. Any of the four largest MKR holders could execute an attack to print unlimited DAI and use that to steal all of the liquidity in Maker as well as DEXs and lending pools. By removing many of the ways that humans can interact with the system, MetaCoin should, in theory, be more resilient to these types of attacks.
  
• While the post explicitly states MetaCoin is not designed to be competitive with Dai, it is going after a very similar use case and will inevitably lead to some value being extracted from the MakerDAO system in terms of human and monetary capital. This could still be a net positive for the entire ecosystem as it can provide a safer alternative for those with different risk preferences.