Rune Christensen, the CEO, and co-founder of MakerDAO, is one of the eminent personalities in the Web3 space. The significance of his contribution to crypto deserves special mention as he helped build the global financial system that issues Dai, which is the world’s first stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain. Dai has provided a stable alternative solution to people of countries where the value of their currencies fluctuates frequently.
Early Life of Rune Christensen
Rune Christensen was born in Denmark and pursued International Business at Copenhagen Business School and Biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen.
Before Entering The Crypto World
Just before starting his crypto journey, Rune Christensen became an entrepreneur and launched Try China, which offers international recruiting services.
The company used to hire Westerners to teach English to students in China. Christensen proved his passion for starting a successful venture when he managed to work on his startup while studying at the University of Copenhagen.
Creating MakerDao
Rune Christensen’s crypto journey began in 2011 when he was first introduced to Bitcoin. He sold his first venture to invest in digital currencies via Mt. Gox.
However, all his investment was wasted in 2014 when Mt. Gox, the most prominent Bitcoin (BTC) exchange at that time, was hacked and eventually collapsed.
The incident made Christensen realize the volatility of cryptocurrencies, and that is when he became interested in stablecoins.
So, in 2015 he launched MakerDAO to make the digital financial system more transparent and to boost people’s confidence in crypto. Within a concise period, MakerDAO, which started as one of the first-ever protocols on the Ethereum blockchain, emerged as one of the largest and most significant ones.
However, Christensen’s journey with MakerDAO hasn’t been easy. In 2020, Maker faced a significant loss after the crypto market crashed following March’s ‘Black Friday,’ which led to a massive decline in Ethereum’s value. The incident led to the liquidation of millions of dollars. As a control measure, MakerDAO launched a multilateral stablecoin called Dai.
Following the incident, Maker Foundation announced that it would dissolve and that total control would be transferred to MakerDAO and its community. However, things soon changed as Maker started recovering from its miserable state.
It soon made history by becoming the first DeFi protocol to reach $1 billion in total value. Dai was also prospering, and its total supply increased by 623% by its third quarter.
MakerDAO and Dai kept prospering throughout 2021, and their journey influenced several individuals to join the crypto space. Thus, along with decentralizing the crypto-verse, they also encouraged crypto adoption.
Dai still has a long way to go, as in 2023, Rune Christensen proposed a new upgradation plan for the stablecoin. He also plans to incorporate artificial intelligence in Maker’s governance to stay ahead of technological advancements.
Maker may also go through a significant makeover as its founders plan to revitalize the platform and ramp up the development of DeFi applications for the stablecoin.
Conclusion
Rune Christensen’s crypto journey is inspiring as the founder faced some of the lowest lows and kept going. His initiative bought innovation to the crypto world, changing the crypto adoption narrative. It also made the digital space more transparent by attempting to provide users with more security.
