MakerDAO / DAI · interactive mechanism simulation

Vault owners lock ETH collateral to mint DAI → stability fees fill the surplus buffer → the oracle watches collateral ratios → undercollateralized vaults get liquidated by keepers → if auctions fail, MKR is diluted to recapitalize the system.
Vault owners lock ETH, mint DAI 0 vaults open DAI market peg: $1.000 Vaults (CDPs) 0 ETH locked ratio: — Price oracle ETH: $2,000 Liquidation auction keepers bid DAI 0 liquidations Surplus buffer 0.0 DAI MKR backstop 1,000,000 MKR bad debt: 0 DAI BLACK THURSDAY: zero-bid auctions!
DAI supply
0
ETH price (oracle)
$2,000
Collateralization ratio
— %
Surplus buffer
0.0 DAI
MKR supply / bad debt
1,000,000 MKR
Parameters — edit me
4.0%
150%
13%
0.6/s
Controls

Illustrative simulation. Modeled on the researched MakerDAO mechanism — overcollateralized ETH vaults, a governance-set liquidation ratio and stability fee, oracle-driven liquidation auctions, and MKR minted as a lender-of-last-resort when auctions fail (as happened on Black Thursday, 12 March 2020). Values, timing, and price moves are randomized for visualization — not live onchain data. Drag the sliders or trigger the failure mode to explore the flywheel. Part of The Onchain Experiment Atlas.