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Head-to-head · Stablecoins

DAI vs USDS (Sky) DAI leads by 3 points.

DAI scores 3 points above USDS (Sky), led by counterparty and insolvency rank and reserve and assurance scope. DAI ranks #5 and USDS (Sky) #10 of 11 published stablecoins. Every term of the gap is on the ledger below; the inputs are on the audit receipt.

DAI58
USDS (Sky)55
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99 · ranks #5 and #10 of 11
Methodology v2026.10.18Ranking snapshot Evidence verified through 4 published criteria5 score dimensions Receipt #cc-VS-DAI-VS-USDS-SKY-397fd6b9
Published verdictRanking snapshot 3 November 2026

DAI leads by 3 points

DAI scores 3 points above USDS (Sky), led by counterparty and insolvency rank and reserve and assurance scope.

DAI #5 of 1158
USDS (Sky) #10 of 1155
Scores are out of 100; published scores fall within 41–99; a bar is empty at 41 and full at 99.
Why, term by termDAI leads on 2 of 4 published criteria; USDS (Sky) on 0. The terms sum to the gap.
TermDAIUSDS (Sky)WeightPoints
Counterparty and insolvency rank2/101/107.2+1.9for DAI+1.0 of 32
Reserve and assurance scope2/101/105.8+1.5for DAI+0.8 of 32
Net of the terms+3.4
Reproduced gap+3.4
Published gapAfter score rounding and bounds — see the note below5855+3.0

Weight is in points of the 86-point weighted total. Points are score points of the gap between the two.

  • A row-above bound on one row means the criterion arithmetic does not reproduce the displayed gap exactly.
Quick facts

At a glance

2 of 3 rows read the same for both.
FactDAIUSDS (Sky)
PricingSnapshotMINT/REDEEM FEE — official Sky Protocol documentation, https://developers.skyeco.com/protocol/liquidity/litepsm/ (fetched 29 September 2026), under “LitePSM-DAI-USDC @ Ethereum” > Details: “Fees have not been activated for DAI → USDC and USDC → DAI.” and “Fees could change in the future.” CORROBORATED ON-CHAIN 2026-09-29: MCD_LITE_PSM_USDC_A (0xf6e72Db5454dd049d0788e411b06CfAF16853042) returned tin() = 0 and tout() = 0 at Ethereum block 26,080,880 — no fee in either direction. MINIMUM: none is imposed by the contract (verified source: the fee is applied only inside “if (tout_ > 0) {” and no require() bounds the amount). CAPACITY: the pocket 0x37305B1cD40574E4C5Ce33f8e8306Be057fD7341 held 4,128,078,640.19 USDC against a DAI totalSupply of 4,601,170,733.74 at that block, with the pocket’s USDC allowance to the PSM effectively unlimited. THE PAGE THAT IS SILENT: the only binding agreement, the Skybase International Terms of Use (docs.sky.money/legal/skybase-international/terms-of-use, “Version: 2.0 | Last Modified: 1 September 2026”, fetched 29 September 2026), contains 0 occurrences of “DAI”, “redeem” and “redemption”; it prices nothing because it promises nothing. Gas is the only unavoidable cost and is paid to Ethereum, not to any issuer. TYPED RATE (label, not a quote): spreadPct = 0 — the LitePSM DAI → USDC swap at par with tin = tout = 0.MINT/REDEEM FEES AND MINIMUMS ARE NOT IN ANY BINDING DOCUMENT. The Skybase International Terms of Use (https://docs.sky.money/legal/skybase-international/terms-of-use, "Version: 2.0 | Last Modified: 1 September 2026", fetched 29 September 2026) is the silent page: 0 occurrences of "redeem" or "redemption", and no fee schedule or minimum of any kind for acquiring or exiting USDS. The only published pricing sits in the protocol documentation and on-chain. Sky Protocol Docs, https://developers.sky.money/protocol/tokens/usds/ (redirects to developers.skyeco.com, fetched 29 September 2026), DAI USDS Converter: "Converts DAI to USDS at a fixed ratio of 1:1 and vice versa." / "No fees assessed." / "Fees cannot be enabled on this route in the future." Sky Protocol Docs, https://developers.sky.money/guides/psm/litepsm/ (fetched 29 September 2026): "The tin fee is assessed on all sellGem transactions, and the tout fee is assessed on all buyGem transactions. Both tin and tout values are set by Sky Ecosystem governance." and "All users, both public and authorized, can only swap up to the DAI and USDC balances held by LitePSM-DAI-USDC." CURRENT VALUES, all read at ONE Ethereum block, 26,082,220 (2026-09-29T09:26:59Z) via https://ethereum-rpc.publicnode.com: LitePSM-DAI-USDC 0xf6e72Db5454dd049d0788e411b06CfAF16853042 tin() = 0 and tout() = 0; LitePSMWrapper-USDS-USDC 0xA188EEC8F81263234dA3622A406892F3D630f98c tin() = 0 and tout() = 0. No minimum size is published or enforced on either route; the practical ceiling is module inventory — 4,133,680,653.128042 USDC in the Pocket 0x37305B1cD40574E4C5Ce33f8e8306Be057fD7341 at that block against a USDS totalSupply of 6,672,590,279.74 (label: on-chain reads, true only at the stamped block). Marketing counterpart on https://sky.money/ (fetched 29 September 2026), reworded since August: "Swap anytime. No fees, no slippage."
Asset coverageEditorial——
Region fitSnapshotglobalglobal
From the published criteria

Which should you pick?

DAI

58#5 of 11
Leads
Pick it when
Pick DAI if counterparty and insolvency rank matters most — it scores 2/10 to USDS (Sky)'s 1/10 there (weight 30).
Strength
Seizure and upgrade authority — 5/10
Tradeoff
The thing that makes DAI feel dollar-redeemable — an instant, zero-fee, no-KYC, no-minimum 1:1 swap into USDC that works at billion-dollar size today — is a mutable governance parameter, not a promise, and it can be revoked faster than governance can normally act. This is now quoted from the source rather than inferred: DssLitePsmMom (0x467b32b0407Ad764f56304420Cddaa563bDab425, verified source, Sourcify exact_match) carries a section banner reading "Governance actions without delay" directly above "function halt(address psm, Flow what) external auth {". A second model run confirmed the mom is armed: PSM.wards(0x467b...b425) = 1 at block 25,789,445. The PSM's own source states "Setting `tin` or `tout` to `HALTED` effectively disables selling and buying gems respectively.", HALTED is "uint256 public constant HALTED = type(uint256).max;", and buyGem opens with "require(tout_ != HALTED, "DssLitePsm/buy-gem-halted");" — so the exit closes the same block it is decided, bypassing the 48-hour governance delay (MCD_PAUSE.delay() = 172800 seconds, re-read on-chain), while Sky's own documentation says only "Fees could change in the future." The chainlog also publishes a purpose-built emergency spell factory for this action, EMSP_LITE_PSM_HALT_FAB (0xB261b73698F6dBC03cB1E998A3176bdD81C3514A). Compounding it: the exit does not deliver dollars, it delivers USDC — "gem.transferFrom(pocket, usr, gemAmt);" — another issuer's token whose own retail redemption is gated, and the 4.13B USDC funding it sits at a single address Circle can blacklist (USDC.isBlacklisted(pocket) resolves and returned false at block 25,789,445 — the power is live, merely unused). And the holder has no unilateral fallback: the Emergency Shutdown Module that historically converted DAI into a direct pro-rata claim on collateral is disarmed — developers.skyeco.com/archive/shutdown/emergency-shutdown/ carries "The Emergency Shutdown Module ESM is currently deprecated" and MCD_ESM.min() returns 2^256-1 against a fire() guarded by "require(Sum >= min, "ESM/min-not-reached");", with ESM.Sum() standing at 0.0013058682050532. Sum can never reach min, so it can never be fired. Only Sky governance can now cage the system.

USDS (Sky)

55#10 of 11
Pick it when
USDS (Sky) leads DAI on no published criterion and no score dimension — pick it only if a fact outside the score (country, funding rail, custody) decides for you.
Strength
Seizure and upgrade authority — 5/10
Tradeoff
That nobody is on the other side. Sky's binding Terms of Use (Version 2.0, last modified 1 September 2026) contain zero occurrences of the words "redeem" or "redemption", and the same document states that Skybase International "is not a subsidiary, agent, or representative of the Sky Protocol" and that neither it nor its affiliates are "party to any transaction on the Sky Protocol" — so there is no entity a holder can present USDS to for a dollar, and no insolvency rank to hold. The par exit everyone actually uses is a swap into USDC through a governance-owned module, and Sky's own protocol documentation says "Governance can set either tin or tout to the value of type(uint256).max , halting sellGem and buyGem transactions respectively on the LitePSM. Transactions would be halted for both public and authorized users." while sky.money's homepage advertises "Swap anytime. No fees, no slippage." Worse than the fee switch: the DAI leg's converter is genuinely immutable, but it mints through UsdsJoin, whose mint call is auth-gated on the token, so a single deny() from the pause proxy severs that route too. A buyer who read only the homepage would learn none of this.
Self-identify in 10 seconds

Which one is actually for you?

DAILeads

Choose DAI if counterparty and insolvency rank matters most

  • Counterparty and insolvency rank: 2/10 against 1/10 for USDS (Sky) (weight 30)
  • Reserve and assurance scope: 2/10 against 1/10 for USDS (Sky) (weight 24)
USDS (Sky)

USDS (Sky) leads DAI on no published criterion

  • Choose it only if something outside the published criteria decides for you — your country, a funding rail, or custody.
Criterion by criterion

Scorecard

Published criteria · weight in points of 868 of 8 cells scored. Strength is read from the evidence file; the weight is the published one. Methodology

Counterparty and insolvency rank

by 1 of 10weight 7.2 of 86DAI leads
DAI2 out of 10
USDS (Sky)1 out of 10

Redemption right exercised

weight 6.7 of 86Tie
DAI4 out of 10
USDS (Sky)4 out of 10

Reserve and assurance scope

by 1 of 10weight 5.8 of 86DAI leads
DAI2 out of 10
USDS (Sky)1 out of 10

Seizure and upgrade authority

weight 4.3 of 86Tie
DAI5 out of 10
USDS (Sky)5 out of 10

Score dimensions

weights sum to 86

The published score is five dimensions, each weighted for the category. "Published criteria" is the criteria block above; the other four are the engine's own terms — availability, friction, trust record, measured data. Each bar is one side's points out of that dimension's maximum; the weight beside the name is its points of the 86-point weighted total. The published criteria above can fill 24 of the block’s 30. A weight marked “constant here” belongs to a dimension every ranked product in the category holds at the same value: it still counts in the total, and it orders nothing here.

Availabilityweight 20 of 86 · constant here
DAI14/20USDS (Sky)14/20
Tie
Published criteriaweight 30 of 86
DAI7.4/30USDS (Sky)6.1/30
DAI leads
Frictionweight 10 of 86 · constant here
DAI2.7/10USDS (Sky)2.7/10
Tie
Trust recordweight 8 of 86 · constant here
DAI3.2/8USDS (Sky)3.2/8
Tie
Measured dataweight 18 of 86 · constant here
DAI8.3/18USDS (Sky)8.3/18
Tie
Decision rulePublished order

Choose DAI unless the term USDS (Sky) leads on is the one you are buying.

USDS (Sky) leads DAI on no published criterion and no score dimension — pick it only if a fact outside the score (country, funding rail, custody) decides for you.

The published order weighs every criterion the same way for everyone. To weigh them your way, run .

From the published order

Next best action

If this isn't your case

Other matchups worth comparing

How you can lose money here, and what the ranking scores
  • Control failure: a key or vote changes the rules, freezes or mints.
    Scored by Who can freeze, burn or replace your balance — and have they? · 18% (DAI 5/10, USDS (Sky) 5/10)
  • Insolvency failure: the firm or issuer that owes you cannot pay.
    Scored by Who exactly owes you the dollar, and where do you rank when they fail? · 30% (DAI 2/10, USDS (Sky) 1/10)
    Scored by What is really behind it, and what did the third party actually opine on? · 24% (DAI 2/10, USDS (Sky) 1/10)
  • Exit failure: you cannot get out at par, on time, or with what is yours.
    Scored by Can the person actually holding it get a dollar back at par — and has anyone, at size? · 28% (DAI 4/10, USDS (Sky) 4/10)
Not assessed by this ranking: Contract failure, Custody failure, Regulatory failure, Information failure. A high place says nothing about these; the Methodology tab says what each means.
Questions

Frequently asked questions

DAI scores 3 points above USDS (Sky), led by counterparty and insolvency rank and reserve and assurance scope. Published scores, out of 100: DAI 58 (rank 5 of 11 stablecoins), USDS (Sky) 55 (rank 10 of 11).

Related pages

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Written and reviewed by Founder
Reviewed Next review by Methodology v2026.10.18
How this page is reviewed

Reviewed means both products compared here was read against its sources on or after that date; every ranked category is re-read at least every 45 days. Models research, extract and parse. A deterministic engine ranks. Every quote passes an adversarial refute pass.

Accountable for this review: Mathias Siemonsmeier, Founder.

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