Rune Christensen is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of MakerDAO. MakerDAO is known for issuing Dai, the world’s first stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain, which eliminates volatility through a system of smart contracts designed to respond to market dynamics. ^[1]

Early Life & Education

Christensen was born in Denmark. He studied International Business at Copenhagen Business School between 2011 and 2013. He also studied Biochemistry at the University of Copenhagen from 2013 to 2014. For some time he lived in China and co-founded Try China, a company offering international recruiting services. ^[1]

Career

Prior to his involvement in the cryptocurrency industry, Christensen had a business focused on recruiting English teachers from Western countries to work in China between 2011 and 2014. In 2011, he became acquainted with Bitcoin and subsequently made the decision to sell his existing business in order to invest in cryptocurrency. However, after the unfortunate hack and subsequent collapse of Mt.Gox in 2014, Christensen got interested in the concept of stablecoins. ^[2]

MakerDAO

In 2015, Christensen launched MakerDAO with the goal of creating a financial system that offers improved transparency and inclusivity for individuals worldwide.^[2][5]

I did a lot of attempts at start-ups when I was younger and worked a lot of time in Asia when I then discovered blockchain technology and first got into Bitcoin but really into Bitcoin, you know became like a real Bitcoin type back in 2011/2012, but then over time I got somewhat disillusioned by Bitcoin’s volatility really and so the fact that it wasn’t seeing less kind of the mainstream adoption that people predicted initially. And I think to a large extent that was because of the volatility because it’s not it’s more useless gold rather than regular currency. So I got into stable coins and I discovered BitShares which was the first decentralized stable grant project. ^[5]

Despite being an active community member of the BitShares project, Christensen was not actively involved in its development. His activeness in the project community helped him gather crucial ideas that formed the basis for the development of MakerDAO. ^[5]

I was a very active community member and many of these like fundamental ideas around Maker DAO all come straight from from the idea of BitShares. In particular like you have regular community members ultimately being like despite not being sort of an official developer of the project, I still was very deeply involved in sort of the core of the governance of it, which is exactly what is so powerful about blockchain technologies and entities. ^[5]

In 2019, MakerDAO announced plans to expand into the Asian market, with a focus on establishing a strong presence through partnerships with knowledgeable and well-connected partners. Christensen considered this an important step for the Maker project since China is a key player in the blockchain industry. ^[4]

“It's really the country that, other than the US essentially, is like running the entire crypto space when it comes to things like trading volume and just really adopting and actually using in real life the new technologies that are possible with blockchain. This was known even in the early days of Bitcoin, [which] only got really big once it started getting traction in China. It was a very sudden and massive escalation of interest. That's how technology is adopted in Asia versus the more organic growth that happens in the West typically.”

• Rune Christensen^[3]

In 2022, Christensen made an attempt to transition MakerDAO towards decentralization by stepping aside from his role. However, this move created a power vacuum and led to divisions within the community. Subsequently, Christensen re-engaged with a plan called Endgame, which aimed to guide MakerDAO towards achieving genuine decentralization. The plan involved restructuring existing departments and introducing mini-DAOs within MakerDAO. The objective was to streamline bureaucratic processes and foster sustainable growth in the long run. ^[3]

Solana Fork Proposal

On September 1, 2023, Rune Christensen proposed using a fork of Solana’s codebase for the final phase of Maker’s “Endgame” strategy. This phase, codenamed NewChain, aims to rebuild the entire Maker Protocol on a stand-alone blockchain. ^[6]

In a tweet and accompanying blog post, Christensen stated that Solana’s codebase should be considered as the basis for NewChain. ^[7]

"The last phase of Endgame is the launch of a native blockchain for Maker with the codename NewChain. It will make the ecosystem more secure and efficient. After some research, I believe the Solana codebase should be considered as the basis for NewChain" ^[7]

He highlighted three key reasons for this choice: Technical quality, Resilience, and successful forks. ^[6]