MakerDAO [MKR]: This report card should be considered before exiting

With the claims of building the world’s first unbiased currency and leading decentralized stablecoin, DAI, MakerDAO is a decentralized organization built on the Ethereum blockchain providing liquidity to its users.

Recent data from DefiLlama showed that, with a total of $9.91b, MakerDAO is now the first in the ranking of decentralized applications in terms of most value locked.

Despite starting the year with a Total Value Locked (TVL) index of $17.5b and suffering a decline of 43% at an $8b loss, MakerDAO still enjoyed 8.76% of the market TVL of $113.15b for all DeFi platforms.

Now, the most pertinent question is- In the face of this loss, how has the network’s governance token, MKR, performed since the beginning of the year?

Prayers up to your Maker?

Starting the year at an index price of $2,337, the overall bearish nature of the cryptocurrency market has caused the MKR tokens to receive some beatings at their price. At $1,282.20 at press time, the token shed 45% in just about 144 days and 3% in the past 24 hours.

General movements on the price chart have been suggestive of a bearish bias all year long. A look at the 50 EMA and the Relative Strength Index (RSI) showed bullish attempts by the token between 3 February and 8 February and also between 17 March and 6 April.

Mostly lying below the 50 neutral region, so far this year, the token has marked attendance in the overbought region just once on 7 April at the 70.7 index. At the time of press, the RSI stood at 40. 

Source: TradingView

Further to this, within the period under review, the market capitalization of the MKR token suffered a decline. Starting the year with a market capitalization of $2.31b, the market cap has since declined by over 40% pegging it at $1.25b at press time. 

Source: CoinMarketCap

The MKR lacks consistency

An analysis of the token’s performance since the beginning of the year hinted at a pattern of inconsistency across leading metrics. With no consistent ratio of highs to lows or lows to highs all year long, the Daily Active Addresses transacting the MKR token marked its highest index at 781 on 11 May. It hit its lowest index of 161 on 23 April. At press time, this stood at 272.

Source: Santiment

On a social front, the token recorded significant strides in Social Volume between 4 March and 15 March. It marked a high of 1683 on 5 March, the highest it has been so far this year.

At press time, this stood at 129, a 92% from the high of 5 March. Similarly, the Social Dominance for the token marked its highest points between 5 March and 15 March. At a high of 1.71% on 5 March, it since declined by 91% to be at 0.148% at press time.

Source: Santiment

Following a similar trend of inconsistency, the transaction volume for the token recorded significant highs on 22 January with 97, 333.69, on 1 March with 94, 735, and on 11 May with 116,000. At press time, this stood at 14,200.

Source: Santiment

According to readings of DefiLlama, MakerDAO is closely followed by Curve with a TVL of $9.18b indicating that, if MakerDAO intends to retain its position, it should take no days off.