OBEX: Sky's Accelerator for Real-World Yield

Introduction

Sky (formerly MakerDAO) is a $15.5B stablecoin protocol whose current strategy reorganizes capital deployment into independent allocators called Agents, formerly Stars, covered in depth in our companion Sky report.

OBEX is the most ambitious manifestation of that strategy to date, carrying a $2.5B USDS deployment mandate. Announced in November 2025, it functions as a structured accelerator (part incubator, part capital allocator) designed to manufacture demand for USDS by directing capital toward institutional-grade, yield-generating RWAs. Framework Ventures co-founder Vance Spencer aims to compete with the Apollos and Blackstones of the world by channeling onchain capital into private credit, energy infrastructure, AI CapEx, real estate, and other productive sectors.

For USDS, OBEX represents Sky's most explicit attempt to manufacture demand through incubated real-world asset pipelines. Every productive real-world deployment through OBEX increases Sky's yield-generating capacity, making USDS more attractive to hold and creating a flywheel between stablecoin supply growth and protocol income.

The backdrop for OBEX is a stablecoin market that is reaching critical mass. The total stablecoin market cap crossed $322.2B in May 2026, a new all-time high, with USDT (~$189.7B) and USDC (~$77.3B) collectively controlling ~83% of the circulating supply. Citi raised its 2030 base-case forecast for stablecoin issuance to $1.9T (bull case: $4T), up from $1.6T in April 2025, citing a 40% increase in issuance volume driven by the GENIUS Act, executive orders, and platform integrations removing friction from stablecoin deployment. Stablecoin settlement already surpasses $27.6T annually, exceeding the combined settlement volume of Visa and Mastercard. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Stripe have all advanced tokenized dollar initiatives in the past twelve months. The protocols best positioned to capture this expansion are those that can direct stablecoin capital into productive, yield-generating real-world assets.