sDAI Yield Explained: Why $2B Migrated to sUSDS
sDAI was DeFi's first mainstream yield-bearing dollar. It is now a legacy product, still live, still earning, but no longer where Sky wants your deposit. sDAI was MakerDAO's first yield-bearing wrapper and reached over $1.5B in supply at its peak; sUSDS replaces sDAI as the primary yield wrapper and is the form Sky now promotes in integrations. If you hold sDAI, the practical question is whether to stay or move. RWTS rates. You decide.
The verdict up front: RWTS scores sDAI at T3 (72/100) and sUSDS marginally higher at T3 (74/100). The two share the same collateral, so the gap is small. But sUSDS almost always pays more, and moving costs only gas. For most holders, migration is the rational default.
What sDAI is and what it earns
sDAI is a receipt token, not a rebasing coin. You deposit DAI into Sky's savings module and receive sDAI that grows in redemption value over time. Each sUSDS represents a pro-rata claim on the USDS pool plus accumulated yield; the token does not rebase, and instead the exchange rate increases block by block, similar to Aave's aTokens in a non-rebasing variant. sDAI works identically against DAI and the DAI Savings Rate.
The yield is not conjured. It draws yield from the same collateral that backs USDS: real-world assets (Treasury bills), crypto-collateralized vaults, and protocol-owned liquidity. That collateral mix has shifted decisively toward tokenized Treasuries. Real-world asset revenue now accounts for over 60% of the protocol's total income, a complete inversion of its original crypto-native economic model. In plain terms: sDAI's yield is increasingly a repackaged T-bill return, which is why it moves with the Fed rather than with crypto sentiment.
Why the capital moved to sUSDS
Sky rebranded from MakerDAO in 2024 and introduced a parallel savings track. The Sky Savings Rate is the administered yield Sky pays to holders of sUSDS; as of Q2 2026 the rate was set at 3.75% by governance, and most onchain capital that previously sat in sDAI has since migrated into sUSDS or wrapped USDS directly. The migration was engineered, not accidental. Sky governance wants new flows to land in USDS and sUSDS, so the Sky Savings Rate carries a premium to the DAI Savings Rate.
That premium is the whole argument. As of Q2 2026, the DAI Savings Rate sits roughly 50 to 100 basis points below the Sky Savings Rate, with the exact gap reset by governance as the migration completes. Holding sDAI over sUSDS means voluntarily accepting a lower administered rate on identical collateral. The exchange layer has already voted with its liquidity. The 2026 exchange migrations mark the practical end of DAI's dominance; legacy DAI remains on-chain, but exchange liquidity has shifted decisively to USDS.
How migration actually works
The path is short and cheap. For existing sDAI positions, migration is one transaction (sDAI to DAI, DAI to USDS, USDS to sUSDS) and gas-only; the pickup is the Sky Savings Rate minus DAI Savings Rate spread, which has run 50-150 bps across 2025-2026. The DAI-to-USDS leg is frictionless. The DAI to USDS upgrade runs through the SkyMoneyConverter contract, a lock-mint and burn-mint pair that swaps the two tokens at a fixed 1:1 rate with no fee.
There is one honest exception. Most holders should migrate unless there is a specific integration reason to stay on DAI. If a lending market, LP position, or treasury workflow you depend on only accepts DAI or sDAI, the friction of unwinding may outweigh the rate pickup. That is a real cost, not a rounding error, for larger positions.
The Trust Score read
RWTS does not treat "same collateral" as "same score." sDAI lands at T3 (72/100) and sUSDS at T3 (74/100). Both inherit the strengths and weaknesses of the Sky stack: a large, diversified collateral pool with meaningful real-world asset backing, offset by governance-set rate risk and the standard smart-contract surface of a DeFi savings module. The underlying USDS token itself scores T3 (72/100).
The distinction that matters is direction of travel. sUSDS is the product Sky is investing in; sDAI is the product Sky is maintaining. Legacy status is not a crisis, but it is a signal, and our methodology weights ongoing issuer commitment and integration momentum. A wrapper the issuer has publicly deprioritized carries a slightly wider forward-uncertainty band than its successor.
What could change the calculus
Two variables. First, the rate spread itself. If governance ever narrows the Sky Savings Rate–to–DAI Savings Rate gap to near zero, the migration case weakens to "convenience only." Second, Fed posture. Because both rates now lean on tokenized Treasury income, a shift in front-end yields flows through to both wrappers roughly in parallel. The spread persists regardless; the absolute level does not.
If you want the deeper mechanics of the successor product, see our companion analysis, What Is sDAI Yield, Safety, and the Migration. For the full field of dollar-denominated yield products and how they stack up, the stablecoin yield hub tracks every rated wrapper.
sDAI still earns. It is still backed by the same pool. It simply pays less than the product built to replace it, and moving costs a gas fee. RWTS rates. You decide.
Related on RWTS
Stay Ahead of the Yield Curve
Subscribe to The Yield Report for weekly yield intelligence.
Subscribe Now
