DAI is an Ethereum-based stablecoin (stable-price cryptocurrency) whose issuance and development is managed by the Maker Protocol and the MakerDAO decentralized autonomous organization.
The price of DAI is soft-pegged to the U.S. dollar and is collateralized by a mix of other cryptocurrencies that are deposited into smart-contract vaults every time new DAI is minted.
It is important to differentiate between Multi-Collateral DAI and Single-Collateral DAI (SAI), an earlier version of the token that could only be collateralized by a single cryptocurrency; SAI also doesn’t support the DAI Savings Rate, which allows users to earn savings by holding DAI tokens.
Multi-Collateral DAI was launched in November 2019.