The proposal to revert the DeFi platform Sky to its original name, Maker, was blocked by a decisive vote from major stakeholders, known as “whales.”
Four key MKR whales, wielding 98% of the voting influence, stood firm in their support of the existing Sky branding.
Consequently, the rebranding initiative fizzled under the overwhelming sway of these influential whale voters.
“Sky ecosystem governance has concluded an onchain vote to continue using the Sky brand as the primary backend protocol of the ecosystem,” the DeFi protocol team said in a post on X on Nov. 8.
It further stated that the decision “supports the ongoing transition from MKR to SKY and establishes Sky as the core brand.”
The vote, which began on Nov. 4, wrapped up with 79% opting to “Keep the Sky brand as the backend protocol brand,” gathering 63,874 MKR in favor.
With 14,864 MKR tokens pledged, only 18.5% of votes favored a limited brand revival of Maker.
Four whale investors held 62,452 MKR, representing 98% of the voting power, and voted in favor of the Sky brand, while a single whale committed nearly all the MKR to the Maker rebranding proposal.
Due to confusion and negative responses surrounding the August rebrand, the Sky community debated restoring its original Maker name in October.
Rune Christensen, the protocol’s co-founder, advocated for a discussion on the governance forum to “recenter the Maker brand.”
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Earlier in the week, ahead of the vote’s conclusion, Vance Spencer of Framework Ventures remarked that SKY hadn’t fully launched yet.
“It is not supported on any major exchanges, places like CoinGecko did not transition MKR market cap to SKY, and the rebrand timing was coincident with one large fund selling their MKR and a general market pullback,” he said, adding:
“Going with SKY – I think there is a ton of value to be unearthed by following the Endgame roadmap, but there are things that should be altered and lessons learned.”
After the rebrand in late August, prices sank almost 50%, hitting $1,100 on Nov. 6. However, a recovery followed, with prices rising above $1,600 in late Nov. 7 trading, then falling back to $1,476 as of this update.
On Nov. 4, Christensen introduced a “strictly deflationary tokenomics” proposal to curb token emissions and reduce the overall supply, which likely contributed to the rebound.
