Sky Protocol
The issuer of USDS, minted against crypto collateral and tokenized money-market holdings, with allocation delegated to semi-autonomous Agents and a savings rate paid to holders who lock it.
The economic model
Sky is a balance sheet. It issues USDS against collateral and against allocations made by its Agents, pays a savings rate to holders who deposit USDS into the savings module, and keeps the difference. On the asset side S&P's August 2025 review found 52% crypto-backed loans, 24% USDC held in the Peg Stability Module, 12% tokenized money market funds and 11% USDe. On the liability side, the Sky Savings Rate was 3.52% on 25 July 2026 against sUSDS supply of $4.70bn. Q1 2026 gross revenue was $123.79m and net surplus $46.04m, a 49.06% margin; the June 2026 update put the annualised gross revenue run-rate at $419.08m and net surplus for that month at $10.81m. Falling Treasury yields pushed the Agents further out the risk curve: Spark placed $100m in Superstate's crypto carry fund in October 2025 rather than hold bills.
Who bears the loss is unusually explicit here. USDS holders are senior. Below them sits the surplus buffer, reported as $82.5m at the end of June 2026, or 55% of a $150m target. Below that, the protocol mints and auctions SKY to cover a shortfall, which dilutes holders. That mechanism is inherited from MakerDAO's debt auctions, and it is the reason S&P assigned Sky a B- issuer credit rating on 11 August 2025, citing a risk-adjusted capital ratio of 0.4% and the capital charge attached to the USDe allocation. stUSDS, introduced as the first Expert token, formalises a junior tranche: depositors take a larger share of protocol rewards in exchange for absorbing a larger share of system risk.
SKY entitles its holder to a governance vote and to staking rewards paid out of protocol profits. It is not a claim on revenue. The buyback programme, which had deployed more than $120m cumulatively since February 2025 and bought 18.6m tokens in the 30 days to June 2026, is the main channel by which surplus reaches the token, and governance cut its allocation to 7.5% of surplus while the $150m Solvency Reserve is being built. The order of priority is stated rather than implied: reserves first, tokenholders second.
How it is governed
Staked SKY holders vote on protocol parameters, collateral and spending under the Atlas rulebook. Capital deployment is delegated to Sky Agents (Spark, Grove and Keel among them), which borrow USDS from the protocol and run their own allocation strategies within governance-set limits.
Where it runs
Ethereum, with USDS and DAI bridged to other networks
The numbers
Each figure as published by the source named on the row. Protocol metrics are especially prone to double-counting; where a provider states a caveat, it is carried here.
| Metric | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| USDS supply | $10bn | 30 June 2026 | Sky Ecosystem Insights: June financial and operational update |
| sUSDS supply | $4.7bn | 25 July 2026 | Sky.money |
| Sky Savings Rate | 3.52% | 25 July 2026 | Sky.money |
| Gross protocol revenue, Q1 2026 | $124m | 31 March 2026 | Sky Protocol: Q1 2026 results |
| Surplus buffer (Sky Reserves) | $82.5m | 30 June 2026 | Sky Ecosystem Insights: June financial and operational update |
Reading protocol metrics
Value locked, fees and volume are computed differently by every provider, and the same activity often appears in two of them. We publish the provider's own figure with its method attached rather than reconciling the difference into a number nobody published.