User:Stevent95/sandbox

MahaDAO Original author(s) Steven Enamakel, Pranay Sanghavi

Initial release Jan 2021

Development status Active

Project goal(s) Create the world’s first inflation-resistant currency

Written in: Solidity

Platform/Blockchain Ethereum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain

Website MahaDAO

MahaDAO is a decentralized autonomous organization that runs on the Ethereum Blockchain. It is a community-governed organization that is run in a decentralized manner using blockchain technology. The key goal outlined by MahaDAO is to develop, maintain and govern the world’s first decentralized value-stable coin ARTH and a decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem around the same. This objective is pursued through the use of smart contracts that incentivize decentralized participants to undertake various governance functions.

History
MahaDAO was launched in October 2020, by a community of like-minded Defi enthusiasts with support from Polygon. The community was led by Indian computer scientist Steven Enamakel and entrepreneur Pranay Sanghvi. On October 2, 2020, the first version of MahaDAO’s whitepaper was released on its website. This white paper outlined the project’s key goals, infrastructure, and core offerings. On December 12th, 2020, MahaDAO partnered up with Polkastarter, an emerging launchpad platform for the Polkadot ecosystem. MahaDAO also announced a partnership with Elrond, a leading Blockchain and a competitor of Ethereum around this time. MahaDAO’s IDO (Initial DEX Offering) on Polkastarter was one of the most historic events in the Blockchain industry. An IDO is similar to an IEO (Initial Exchange Offering) but offered on a decentralized exchange such as Uniswap.

The IDO was acclaimed to be the first bot-free IDO in the industry because of the immersive whitelisting campaign carried out by the MahaDAO community, in a decentralized manner. The whitelisting campaign would then be used as a benchmark by all projects debuting as an IDO. MahaDAO’s smart contracts were deployed on the Ethereum Blockchain on December 17th, 2020, followed by its listing on the decentralized exchange platform, Uniswap.

MahaDAO launched its incubation program in May 2021. As part of this program, MahaDAO introduced Scallop, a DeFi neo-bank aimed at simplifying crypto in Europe. Scallop positioned itself as The World's First Regulated DeFi Bank. MahaDAO carried out a successful pre-sale and IBO (Initial Blockchain Offering) for Scallop. Scallop is now a well-reputed project with fully regulated licenses.

On June 7th 2021, MahaDAO integrated Chainlink’s price feed to secure the Arth GMU Peg.

As of today, MahaDAO is led by Pranay Sanghvi and Steven Enamakel. MahaDAO (MAHA) is currently listed on Kucoin, Gate.io, AscendEX (formerly Bitmax), Uniswap, Sushi Swap, Ape Swap, Quick Swap, BKEX, Hoo, and BitGlobal.

Name
According to the co-creators, the term MAHA is derived from the Sanskrit language and means “Great.” Additionally, the term Maha has also been used across the Pali, Hindi, Gujarati, and other Indian languages and also means “One having a monumental characteristic.” Although the term MAHA originates in Indian culture, the term has now come to be recognized by a global audience.

Inspiration
The key inspiration behind the creation of MahaDAO as outlined by the co-creators is “to empower billions to preserve their purchasing power.” Ever since the Bretton Woods system was abolished in 1971 during the Nixon Shock, the US Dollar was taken off the Gold Standard thereby turning it into a fiat currency as opposed to a currency backed by a hard asset. Since then, the value of the Dollar has been maintained solely through trust in the US Economy. As the Dollar gained global reserve status, it has come to be generally accepted as a safe bet. However, the Federal Reserve has enjoyed a free hand in regulating the supply of Dollars since it is no longer on the gold standard and that has caused various issues such as rising inflation and reduction in purchasing power.

While rising inflation has hit all nations across the world yet its greatest blows have been on a few. Inflation that has gone unchecked and out of hand has resulted in Hyperinflation in various nations such as Venezuela, Argentina, Zimbabwe, and others. As per a paper released by the International Monetary Fund, several countries have had to face hyperinflation in the past to the tune of a 1000% or more in a year. This happened with Zimbabwe in 2008 which experienced the worst case of hyperinflation with estimated annual inflation at one point of 500 billion percent.

The COVID-19 pandemic has only served to worsen the situation. Owing to the forced shutdown of economic activity and the ensuing chaos, Central Banks across the world had to resort to unprecedented measures such as expanding their balance sheets, and quantitative easing. The outcome of this is Inflation rates have doubled in 37 of 44 advanced economies over the past two years (2020-2022) with the USA itself facing a year-on-year rise in Inflation to the tune of 8.5% as per the July 2022 Consumer Price Index figures. Following on such figures from one of the world’s largest economies, several other countries like Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Venezuela, etc. are reeling under double and triple digital inflation.

Combating Hyperinflation and loss of purchasing power is the key motivation behind the creation of MahaDAO. The founders sought to architect and create an asset that is easy to transact, preserves value, and is accepted by all... The solution was pinpointed towards an asset-backed non-depreciating cryptocurrency that can hold value and preserve purchasing power across market cycles irrespective of central bank monetary policies. The solution was a result of the consistent effort and determination of various economists and scientists.

MAHA Governance Token
The MahaDAO project came into existence through the public sale of MAHA tokens. A maximum of 10,000,000 MAHA tokens can ever be created thereby capping the number of people who were allowed to participate. MAHA is the governance and utility token that regulates the ARTH value coin and keeps the protocol decentralized.

Furthermore, the supply of MAHA is stretched out across a period of 10 years to ensure that token holders are as distributed and decentralized as possible. No one entity should be capable of controlling more than 1% of the supply over the course of the next few years. Community members use the MAHA token to vote on key aspects of the ecosystem in order to collectively manage the parameters that keep ARTH stable and in check. The community drives growth using democratic frameworks such as governance portals, forums & social discourse.

ARTH Value Coin
Usually, stablecoins are pegged to fiat currencies like the Dollar or Euro or assets like Gold or Bitcoin. ARTH is designed to not be pegged to government-owned currencies (like US Dollar, Euro, or Chinese Yuan), but still remain relatively stable (unlike Gold and Bitcoin).

Audits
All MahaDAO products and smart contracts have undergone and passed extensive Certik audits to ensure the security and reliability of code. Certik is the leading and most trusted blockchain security firm that has secured hundreds of DeFi protocols and top-shelf blockchains.