What Dai is
Dai is a crypto-collateralized / algorithmic stablecoin, currently ranked 19th by market capitalization among the assets we track. Dai aims to hold a stable value without relying on a centralized reserve. It leans on over-collateralization, automated incentives, or both, which is powerful but historically more fragile than cash backing.
Dai (DAI) is a decentralized stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain, pegged to the US Dollar, designed to maintain price stability through collateralization and smart contracts. It is governed by the MakerDAO community, enabling users to create and manage Dai through over-collateralized loans.
How the peg is engineered
Because backing is on-chain, Dai can be audited in real time — but it also inherits the volatility of its collateral. Liquidation mechanics and over-collateralization buffers are what stand between the peg and a depeg.
DAI is not mined; it is issued as a token rather than secured by its own mining or staking layer.
Background & fundamentals
Dai first went live in 2017, giving it roughly 9 years of on-chain price history to draw on. Dai operates under a centralized structure, which concentrates protocol decisions in an identifiable issuer or foundation. A documented core team of 36 contributors is listed publicly, a depth of disclosed staffing many long-tail tokens lack.
Its codebase is open-source, meaning the implementation can be audited rather than taken on trust. The project publishes a whitepaper documenting its original design, which is worth reading before sizing any position in DAI. CoinPaprika classifies the project's development status as "Working product".
In sector terms it is most often filed under Stablecoin, Ethereum (ETH) Token (ERC-20), and DeFi.
Where Dai sits in the market
At $1.00, Dai carries a market capitalization of $5.37B. Around $5.47M changes hands across exchanges in a typical 24-hour window. That is a turnover of about 0.10% of the float — on the quieter side, which can mean thinner liquidity for large orders.
Dai carries no fixed maximum supply; issuance follows a programmatic schedule rather than a hard cap. DAI trades about -27% below its all-time high of $1.37, within reach of prior peaks. Measured from its all-time low of $0.7874, DAI is up +27%.
What the price history shows
The tape currently reads 7-day +0.11%, 30-day -0.06%, 1-year -0.06%. Within its 21-day range, DAI sits around the middle (the 47th percentile of recent daily closes).
Volatility profile
Recent action puts Dai in the Low-volatility band — it has been relatively stable, with moves typical of large-cap, mature assets. Over the last 30 days the move totals -0.06%, a useful input for stop placement and position sizing.
How to evaluate Dai
The honest checklist for DAI is short:
- Collateral backing — what secures DAI, how over-collateralized it is, and how correlated that collateral is to the rest of crypto.
- Mechanism resilience — whether the peg has survived prior drawdowns, and how liquidations behave under stress.
- Decentralization trade-off — how much trust moves from a custodian to code — and whether that code has been battle-tested.
This page pulls live market data, on-chain stats where available, exchange-by-exchange volume, and our forecast model into one view so you can work through those questions in a single place. None of it is investment advice — it is a structured starting point for your own research.
