The Defiant - DeFi Podcast Why DAO Governance Always Turns Political
Feb 20, 2026
Rune Christensen, DeFi entrepreneur and creator of Maker/DAI and Sky, discusses why decentralized governance inevitably becomes political. He recounts Sky’s architectural overhaul, the separation of core risk versus agent business functions, USDS’s native yield model, Basel-inspired risk frameworks, and how agents and foundations scale tokenized real-world assets.
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Use Basel Rules For Crypto Risk
- Apply Basel-like credit enhancement to make diverse assets comparable in risk.
- Require agents to provide extra buffer capital when deploying into riskier assets.
Organic Growth Without Incentives
- USDS adoption grew organically without incentive programs, driven by delivering reliable yield.
- Rune notes the system subsidized yields early then slowly normalized to a sticky 4% Sky Savings Rate.
Open Forecast Model For Community Scrutiny
- Sky published an open-source forecast model so anyone can test growth assumptions.
- Rune expects agents and persistent efficiency to be the main levers for 2026 expansion.