Two Paths in the RWA Track

When it comes to stablecoins and US debt pegging, MakerDAO and Lista DAO take completely different routes. One chooses to directly purchase government bonds, while the other introduces a third-party stablecoin—it's worth breaking down the logic behind these choices.

MakerDAO operates a self-managed model, directly holding US government bonds to control assets from the source. The obvious benefit is high transparency: you can directly control the assets in the treasury. But what’s the cost? It requires building complex off-chain legal structures and trust entities, with cumbersome compliance processes and relatively high costs.

In contrast, Lista DAO introduces USD1 stablecoins issued by World Liberty Financial, which are backed by government bonds. The advantage of this approach is simplified on-chain operations—only managing collateral contracts without needing to build extensive off-chain infrastructure. It sounds much easier.

But there’s a catch—by doing so, you give up direct control over the underlying assets. MakerDAO can directly operate the treasury in case of situations, while Lista depends on the discretion of its partners. This is an arbitrage of using control rights to offset compliance costs, with the risk lying in the creditworthiness of the agents. Whether the agents’ credit can withstand the protocol’s reputation is the key question.

Neither model is inherently better; it all depends on how you evaluate this trade-off.