MakerDAO has begun voting on a pair of governance polls designed to limit exposure of the DAI stablecoin to Gemini as a result of the current liquidity crisis facing the exchange's lending platform called Earn.

The Gemini dollar, or GUSD, is one of the collateral assets used for minting the DAI stablecoin issued by the Maker protocol. Gemini and Maker entered into a partnership last year that saw the latter earn 1.5% when GUSD collateral in the Maker PSM exceeds $100 million. PSM stands for peg stability module and is the mechanism by which users can mint DAI in exchange for any Maker-accepted collateral. The PSM also maintains DAI’s parity with the U.S. dollar.

The GUSD collateral in the Maker protocol is now $489 million against a $500 million debt ceiling — the maximum amount of DAI that can be minted from Gemini dollar. MakerDAO participants have raised concerns about DAI’s exposure to Gemini and the potential insolvency risks associated with the Earn program's $900 million locked in the troubled crypto lender Genesis Global Capital.

Governance polls are the first step in the MakerDAO voting process. Polls that scale this step will move to an executive vote before being implemented on the Maker protocol.