Vitalik sells MakerDAO stake after co-founder Christensen suggests Solana-based blockchain

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin sold his entire remaining stake of 500 MakerDAO tokens today on CoW Protocol, receiving 353 ETH worth about $580,000 in return, blockchain data show. 

The move followed a Friday blog post from MakerDAO co-founder Rune Christensen which outlines long-term plans for a reimplementation of the project built on a new blockchain, dubbed NewChain, that could be forked from the Solana blockchain. A move to the Rust-based Solana codebase would be significant for the project, currently written in Solidity and based on Ethereum. 

Why Christensen sees a future in Solana

Christensen cited three reasons for his determination that Solana's codebase is the "most promising" to explore for NewChain including the technical quality and optimization of the Solana codebase, the resilience of the Solana ecosystem following the "FTX blowup," and past examples of successful forks of Solana, like the Pyth Network. 

Christensen raised a possible future where MakerDAO's NewChain acts as a secure bridge between Ethereum and Solana, providing "a useful boost to the network effect of the entire multichain economy."

Christensen also identified Cosmos as the other main contender for NewChain's codebase.

MakerDao's dai stablecoin is currently the third-largest USD-pegged stablecoin with a supply of $3.9 billion though it greatly trails leader Tether's supply at $82.9 billion, according to data from The Block. 

Buterin's quiet sale

Buterin acquired his initial stake of 1071 MKR tokens in April 2018, when the price was $905. That would leave him with gains of about 27% on the tokens he sold today.

Buterin last touched his stash of MKR tokens in April 2021, when he donated 100 tokens to India's Covid relief fund, blockchain data show. 

Note: This story was updated to correct Rune Christensen's title.