Ex MakerDAO Contributor Announces $4M USD Donation For DeFi Research

Nikolai Mushegian, a former technical partner for the MakerDAO blockchain project, has announced a donation of 10,000 MKR tokens to his alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

In a blog post, Mushegian said that he has already donated 3,200 MKR and informally committed another 6,800 MKR. The purpose of the donation is to set up a research program for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and decentralized applications (Dapps).

“The main use of funds will be sponsoring Master’s and Ph.D students working on a few key areas of research,” Mushegian said. “CMU is home to world-class experts in several areas that will be critical in the coming years, particularly algorithm design (hint: scaling) and game theory.”

According to Mushegian, he have two motives for this donation. The first is simply that it’s good karma. The second is that he is very concerned about the increasing rent-seeking behavior from some of the big players in this space, and also from existing banks and tech giants.

Mushegian believes that DeFi systems will eventually replace the financial backbone of the economy.

“If you thought someone eating your lunch was bad, imagine if you discovered that “generalized Uniswap” was patented. It will only get worse,” Mushegian said. “Fortunately, there is already a dedicated class of institutions for doing research for the good of the public, and which attract the top-tier contributors who don’t like legal and political battles: Academia.”