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According to data from DeFiLlama on May 31, MakerDAO, an Ethereum-based decentralized money market that enables the borrowing and lending of assets, including ETH, expends approximately $27.66 million annually to sustain the protocol.
This financial allocation serves various purposes, such as supporting the 97 individuals responsible for maintaining and smoothly operating the lending and borrowing protocol, ensuring its seamless functionality.
Significant Expenditures by MakerDAO In 2023 alone, MakerDAO has already spent slightly over $10.6 million in DAI, the algorithmic stablecoin managed and minted by MakerDAO, which is designed to track the value of the USD. This stablecoin differs from other commonly used fiat-pegged stablecoins, such as USDT or BUSD, as a decentralized entity issues it without requiring each token to be backed by an equivalent amount of fiat currency, primarily the USD.
Out of the $10.6 million spent, 2,048,873 DAI was allocated for Protocol Engineering, and 15% of the total expenses were dedicated to Sustainable Ecosystem Scaling. Moreover, strategic finance accounted for 385,875 DAI, growth utilized 537,448 DAI, and 811,704 DAI was allocated for Oracles. Additionally, 903,459 DAI was allocated to develop and improve the user interface.
The remuneration and other employee benefits are covered by funds allocated to the Protocol Engineering Unit, which currently has a monthly budget of 624,165 DAI, projected to decrease to 475,089.13 DAI.
Specifically, the monthly budget for employee compensation and benefits approved by MakerDAO amounts to 396,895.13 DAI. Only 2,072 DAI has been utilized for travel and other entertainment expenses.
Apart from employee-related expenses, MakerDAO allocated 75,250 DAI for professional services, while software development and user interface expenses exceeded the forecasted amount. In the previous month, MakerDAO spent 8,635.78 DAI to maintain their servers on Amazon Web Services, surpassing the budget by 2,976.68 DAI.
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LidoDAO’s Annual Expenditure: $16.81 Million Comparatively, the funds required to sustain MakerDAO are approximately $10 million higher than those needed for Aave and Lido. Data indicates that Aave and Lido necessitate $19.2 million and $16.81 million, respectively, for their operations.
The variance in expenditure may be attributed to differences in headcount, as MakerDAO employs 97 individuals, whereas Lido has 83 employees. The number of employees at Aave remains undisclosed.
Nevertheless, Lido, a staking liquidity protocol, boasts the largest total value locked (TVL) among DeFi protocols. As of May 31, LidoDAO’s TVL amounted to $13.13 billion, twice that of MakerDAO, and nearly triple the TVL of Aave, which stood at $5.33 billion.