The price of MakerDAO’s native token $MKR has been bucking the bearish trend in the cryptocurrency space, having surged nearly 200% so far this year to now trade at a 16-month high above $1,500 per token.
According to available market data, the cryptocurrency started the year trading at around $500 after falling from an all-time high above the $6,000 mark seen during the bull run, and is now trading at its highest level since May 2022.
Behind Maker’s price rise could be the protocol’s growing annualized revenue, which thanks to the collateral used to back its DAI stablecoin is now close to the $200 million mark. The protocol’s collateral now includes real-world assets (RWAs) as collateral, including U.S. Treasury bills which are paying investors a 5% annual percentage yield. 53% of all circulating DAI’s collateral comes from these RWAs.
Per researcher Thor Hartvigsen, 63% of the protocol’s annualized revenue comes from the real world assets in collateral. As DAI’s supply grows along with interest rates in the US, Maker’s protocol has been growing as well.
The researcher noted that DA’s supply has growin from $4.5 billion to over $5.5 billion “very quickly because of the 5% yield users can earn from the sDAI vault” on the Spark Protocol, which is a DAI-focused lending protocol launched by Maker’s prominent community members. The yield, per the researches, is paid out from the revenue Maker generates on the collateral.
Hartvigsen added that Maker’s price could keep on climbing as MKR’s trading at a 6.7 price/revenue multiple. If DAI’s supply keeps on growing, he added, Maker’s revenue will grow as well which “most likely will impact the price positively.”
Per his words, going long MKR is “therefore a direct bet on the future growth of the $DAI supply.” Another potential catalyst includes a 1:12000 token split to lower the token’s price and a potential rebrand for the tokens.
Featured image via Pixabay.
