Will MakerDAO hold Gemini’s GUSD in its reserve? Early voting numbers suggest…

• MakerDAO’s community is voting to decide if Gemini’s GUSD should be maintained in its reserves.
• Early poll stats suggest that the stablecoin will be retained by the DeFi lender.

Leading DeFi platform MakerDAO is currently in the middle of a governance vote that will decide the fate of the GUSD stablecoin. The lending protocol’s community is voting to determine if Gemini’s stablecoin should be retained in the decentralized autonomous organization’s reserve. 

Eliminate GUSD from reserves?

According to the proposal, which was brought by the Strategic Finance Core Unit, MakerDAO currently enjoys $7.3 million of annual revenues from its $500 million exposure to Gemini’s GUSD.

The revenue comes from a marketing incentive of 1.5% that Gemini pays to the lending platform for maintaining more than $100 million of GUSD. 

The ongoing vote will decide if the exposure is to be maintained at $500 million or should be decreased to $100 million. A third option of eliminating all GUSD reserves has also been proposed. The recent controversies surrounding Gemini and its financial health prompted this vote. 

“Community members have expressed concerns over recent news surrounding the exchange business and have expressed a desire to rotate Maker’s exposure out of GUSD altogether,” the proposal read. 

Majority in favor of holding GUSD

Interestingly, early voting numbers are suggesting that MakerDAO will retain its exposure to GUSD after all. Community members have shown confidence in Gemini’s ability to weather their financial troubles. According to the voting stats, more than 77% of the votes have been cast in favor of retaining GUSD in the DAO’s reserves. 

No votes were cast in favor of reducing the exposure to $100 million, while 22% of the votes were in favor of eliminating the stablecoin from the reserve. The voting process, which began on 16 January, will end later today (19 January) at 16:00 UTC. 

The fact that MakerDAO’s community is leaning towards retaining Gemini’s stablecoin is good news for the latter. The crypto exchange is one of the many victims of the ongoing crypto winter.