Contents

1. Relevance to pDAI
2. Who Is Hexonaut?
3. What Is Spark?
4. sDAI: The Savings DAI Product
5. The D3M: Direct Deposit Module
6. Spark on PulseChain: What Was Forked
7. Key Community Threads
8. Open Questions

Spark / SparkFi: A Deep Dive

Research document based on: Telegram pDAI Chat Export 2026-05-14 (881 HTML pages); PDAI_REPEG_WORKBOOK.md; PDAI_EXPLOIT_DEEP_DIVE.md. "Spark" appears in 40 files, "sDAI" in 64 files, "Hexonaut" in 12 files, "D3M" in 25 files. All claims are Telegram-sourced unless otherwise noted.

Relevance to pDAI

Spark is not a peripheral project. It is the protocol that sits immediately behind MakerDAO's DAI — the upstream system from which pDAI was forked. Understanding Spark means understanding the machinery that generated pDAI in the first place, the mechanics that could theoretically restore its peg, and the question of whether the people who built that machinery are now operating quietly on PulseChain.

Three threads connect Spark directly to the pDAI story:

1. sDAI — Spark's flagship product, the Savings DAI token that earns the DAI Savings Rate. Spark launched on Ethereum 3 days before PulseChain's genesis block — a gap the community believes was deliberate, with Richard Heart waiting specifically for Spark to go live so its contracts would be captured in the fork. A PulseChain version of this yield mechanism exists in the forked code.

2. The D3M — The Direct Deposit Module, a MakerDAO mechanism that mints DAI and deposits it directly into third-party lending protocols to manage liquidity and peg stability. The community's most credible analysts identify the D3M as the primary repeg mechanism for pDAI — and the 5996/0000 wallet cluster has been documented executing D3M calls on PulseChain.

3. Hexonaut — Sam MacPherson, the MakerDAO engineer who built sDAI and co-founded Spark. The community has persistently speculated that Hexonaut or members of his team are operating secretly on PulseChain. No one has confirmed this. No one has definitively disproved it.

1. Who Is Hexonaut?

Identity: Sam MacPherson, known on crypto Twitter and Telegram as @hexonaut. A senior MakerDAO engineer responsible for some of the protocol's most technically significant additions.

What he built at MakerDAO:

Hexonaut is credited in the community primarily with two contributions:

• sDAI — the Savings DAI product (see Section 3 below)
• D3M — the Direct Deposit Module (see Section 4 below)

Community member Skeed (messages242.html, 24 Mar 2025):

"Hexonaut is a MakerDAO engineer, love me some hex. He coded sDAI that Richard bought with the sac funds."

The reference to Richard Heart buying sDAI with "sac funds" — the HEX sacrifice proceeds — is a notable aside: it places Hexonaut's product in direct contact with RH's treasury prior to PulseChain's launch.

Co-founding Spark:

Hexonaut left MakerDAO to co-found Spark — the lending and savings protocol built on top of MakerDAO's infrastructure. The exact date of departure is not pinned in the Telegram record. What is noted is the timing of Spark's launch:

"Is anyone able to explain for a noob how Spark plays into this? It launched right before PulseChain (to be included in the fork) and Hexonaut was one of the devs. Obviously there's major significance." — win, messages242.html, 25 Mar 2025

Spark launched on Ethereum in a window that meant its contracts were captured in the Ethereum state snapshot at PulseChain's fork block. This was not an accident of timing from PulseChain's perspective — forking Ethereum at that specific block included Spark's contracts in PulseChain's genesis state.

Community speculation on PulseChain involvement:

The community has repeatedly raised the possibility that Sam MacPherson is not merely a background figure but an active operator on PulseChain under a pseudonym:

"I feel like he's Sam MacPherson… but he's meant to be at a stablecoin conference this week." — Ben Sauce, messages204.html, 21 Mar 2025

"Sam MacPherson is the impostor." — NEXT PLAGUE, messages505.html, 28 Jul 2025

"I knew it was all a show." — Árni, messages242.html, 24 Mar 2025

These comments are speculative and unverified. However the consistency of the suspicion across a multi-month period — and the technical profile of the 5996 wallet cluster — keeps the question alive. The repeg workbook documented that the creator of the D3M is Hexonaut, and the D3M is actively being executed on PulseChain by wallets in the 5996 cluster.

2. What Is Spark?

Spark is an autonomous lending and savings protocol deployed on Ethereum, built on top of MakerDAO's DAI system. It is most accurately described as a front-end and product layer sitting above MakerDAO's core contracts — it uses MakerDAO's infrastructure to offer users yield-bearing savings (via sDAI) and overcollateralised borrowing (similar to MakerDAO's own vault system but with a cleaner product interface).

Relationship to MakerDAO / Sky:

Spark was developed by members of the MakerDAO team and is tightly integrated with MakerDAO's governance and rate-setting mechanisms. The DAI Savings Rate (DSR) — the interest rate that DAI holders can earn by depositing into the DSR contract — is set by MakerDAO governance and passed through to sDAI holders via Spark.

When MakerDAO rebranded to Sky Protocol, Spark remained the primary consumer-facing savings product. The community on PulseChain sometimes refers to this as "Spark.Finance" to distinguish from any PulseChain equivalent.

Timing relative to PulseChain — a deliberate 3-day window:

Spark launched on Ethereum, and PulseChain's mainnet launched 3 days later. The community's consistent position is that this gap was not coincidental — Richard Heart deliberately waited for Spark to go live on Ethereum before forking:

"xDAI Gnosis is connected to Sparkdotfi. Richard waited to fork Pulse for Spark to be launched (PulseChain launched 3 days after)." — Koa Nado, messages663.html, 14 Oct 2025

"Yes it was hidden sDAI bags — that's why they waited to launch PulseChain 3 days after Spark launched. That was the speculation I think." — Cryptico, messages833.html, 25 Feb 2026

"Is anyone able to explain for a noob how Spark plays into this? It launched right before PulseChain (to be included in the fork) and Hexonaut was one of the devs. Obviously there's major significance." — win, messages242.html, 25 Mar 2025

The implication: by waiting those 3 days, Richard Heart ensured that Spark's contracts — including sDAI and the D3M — were live and included in the Ethereum state snapshot that became PulseChain's genesis block. Everything Spark had deployed in that 3-day window was forked into PulseChain for free.

The "hidden sDAI bags" framing refers to the possibility that wallets holding sDAI on Ethereum at the fork block received psDAI on PulseChain — a position that would appreciate if and when the pDAI peg is restored, since sDAI's value is denominated in DAI. If Richard Heart or associates held sDAI at the fork, they effectively received a leveraged bet on the pDAI repeg at no cost.

This is also the thread connecting Hexonaut directly to the PulseChain story:

"Isn't Hexonaut the Spark protocol dev? What's the overall mood about him? I just assumed he's part of the pDAI team once I found out about the PulseChain launch date in relation to the Spark DSR launch thing." — mrs. dai dreamer, messages857.html, 11 Apr 2026

Whether Hexonaut had any foreknowledge of or coordination with PulseChain's launch timing is not confirmed. What is confirmed is that his protocol was live on Ethereum for exactly 3 days before the fork that copied it onto PulseChain.

3. sDAI: The Savings DAI Product

What sDAI is:

sDAI (Savings DAI) is an ERC-20 token that represents DAI deposited into MakerDAO's DAI Savings Rate (DSR) contract. When a user deposits DAI into the DSR, they receive sDAI in return. The sDAI balance grows automatically as the DSR accrues — it is a yield-bearing wrapper around DAI.

Mechanically: the DSR contract holds DAI and mints sDAI at a ratio determined by the accumulated savings rate. As time passes and the DSR accumulates, each unit of sDAI redeems for progressively more DAI. The holder does nothing — the yield is automatic.

Why Richard Heart bought sDAI with sacrifice funds:

If Hexonaut's sDAI was purchased by Richard Heart using HEX sacrifice proceeds prior to PulseChain's fork, those sDAI positions would have been forked into PulseChain's genesis state — meaning psDAI (the PulseChain fork of sDAI) would have been distributed to the same wallet that held sDAI on Ethereum at the fork block.

PulseChain equivalent:

The community has theorised about what the PulseChain sDAI analog looks like:

"I'd reckon that PAI will be the PulseChain equivalent of sDAI." — Schlenderman, messages342.html, 20 Apr 2025

PAI — a PulseChain savings instrument — is discussed as the likely successor product, though whether this is a formal Spark deployment or a community-built equivalent is not confirmed in the Telegram record.

Separately:

"OA has sDAI in privacy pools." — Nuance_Maximalist, messages345.html, 21 Apr 2025

This reference to sDAI in privacy pools suggests the forked sDAI contract on PulseChain has active holdings, though the operator is identified only as "OA" — an unresolved handle.

4. The D3M: Direct Deposit Module

The D3M is arguably the most technically significant mechanism for the pDAI repeg, and it was built by Hexonaut at MakerDAO before the fork.

What the D3M does:

Victor R provided the most complete explanation in the Telegram record (messages513.html, 31 Jul 2025):

"MakerDAO is going to mint hundreds of billions of new pDAI and deposit it into Compound using D3M (Direct Deposit Module). This fills the system's bad debt ('woe'), restores reserves ('cDAI'), and enables arbitrage (borrow cDAI → buy cheap pDAI → burn → repeat) — pushing the pDAI price back to $1.

TLDR: Mint pDAI → Deposit to Compound → Cover debt + boost reserves → Arbitrage kicks in → Peg restored." — Victor R, messages513.html, 31 Jul 2025

The D3M mechanics in full:

1. The D3M module has permission to call vat.suck() — minting unbacked pDAI directly from the system
2. It deposits that freshly minted pDAI into a target lending protocol (in PulseChain's case, the forked Compound — pCompound)
3. The deposit fills pCompound's liquidity pool, generating cDAI (the pCompound deposit receipt token)
4. Arbitrageurs then borrow cheap pDAI from pCompound, sell it for other assets, wait for the price to recover, buy pDAI back at a lower price, and repay — each cycle pushing pDAI upward
5. The D3M can also be calibrated in reverse — withdrawing deposits to drain liquidity and allow price discovery

D3M activity on PulseChain:

The community confirmed active D3M operation as recently as August 2025:

"pMaker's cDAI growth indicates increased liquidity or deposits. It also indicates that pMakerDAO's Direct Deposit DAI Module (D3M) has supplied additional DAI liquidity to the Compound lending protocol." — marculix, messages571.html, 27 Aug 2025

However, Skorn — one of the most technically reliable researchers in the group — raised a caveat about the D3M's post-ESM status:

"Compound has no permissions to call vat.suck to mint unbacked pDAI, nor can it exit from a vault to mint backed pDAI. It can only control cDAI. The D3M module may have been able to facilitate some pDAI behaviour, but since it wasn't culled prior to the ESM I don't believe it plays a part anymore." — Skorn, messages624.html, 23 Sep 2025

This is a technically significant point: when the ESM (Emergency Shutdown Module) was triggered on 16 April 2025, Vat.live() was set to 0. Whether the D3M remained operational post-cage, or whether it was effectively frozen by the shutdown, is a live debate. Skorn's read is that the ESM neutered the D3M's ability to mint new pDAI, while the cDAI growth reported by marculix in August suggests some D3M-adjacent activity continued.

NineIronCapital's tweet resolves the debate:

NineIronCapital published a direct clarification on Twitter (28 June 2025) that resolves the Skorn ambiguity:

"cDAI and aDAI have direct deposit modules that live through the ESM and can be operated after the VAT is no longer live." — NineIronCapital, Twitter, 28 Jun 2025

This is the most authoritative statement on post-ESM D3M status in the research record. The D3M modules for the Compound (cDAI) and Aave (aDAI) ilks survive the cage and remain operable — which means the repeg mechanism Victor R described (mint pDAI → deposit into Compound → fill liquidity → enable arbitrage) is theoretically executable even after Vat.live() = 0. The "uncull" of the relevant ilks is identified by NineIronCapital as the key endgame trigger required to activate the full repeg sequence.

Connection to the 5996/0000 wallet cluster:

The repeg workbook documents wallet 0000 executing D3M exec() calls in July and September 2024 — prior to the ESM. The same wallet sits in the same execution cluster as BAD9 and c000, which are directly linked to 5996. The community noted this in the context of Hexonaut's original authorship:

"Then there are others (potentially MakerDAO devs) who worked on the upgraded Maker... the creator of D3M is Hexonaut (MakerDAO team)." — messages488.html

The implication: the wallet executing D3M calls on PulseChain may be someone from Hexonaut's own team, or someone with equivalent knowledge of the D3M's internal mechanics.

5. Spark on PulseChain: What Was Forked

Because Spark launched on Ethereum immediately before PulseChain's genesis block, the following were present in PulseChain's forked state at genesis:

• The sDAI contract (the savings DAI ERC-20 and its underlying DSR interface)
• The D3M module (with its permissions to interact with the Vat)
• Any other Spark-deployed contracts active on Ethereum at the fork block

Whether these contracts are being operated, upgraded, or ignored is the central unanswered question. The D3M evidence above suggests at least the D3M interface was active in 2024. The sDAI contract's status is less clear.

The community reference to "Spark.Swap" on PulseChain (mentioned in the Maria/ATROPA ecosystem context in PDAI_MARIA_ATROPA_ECOSYSTEM.md) suggests there may be a PulseChain-native interface for Spark-style functionality, but this is distinct from the Ethereum-deployed Spark protocol.

6. Key Community Threads

Ben Sauce as primary Spark/Hexonaut source:

Ben Sauce appears repeatedly as the community member most actively connecting Spark and Hexonaut to the pDAI story, forwarding information to other channels and directing attention to Hexonaut's profile:

"@SommiTelegram see my comment re Spark Finance and Hexonaut in your telegram 👀" — Ben Sauce, messages269.html, 29 Mar 2025

IronClad and NineIronCapital:

IronClad (messages204.html, 21 Mar 2025) was present in early discussions of the Spark/Hexonaut connection. NineIronCapital's one documented remark in a Spark-adjacent context — "Sparkling water" (messages329.html, 18 Apr 2025) — is ambiguous: either a joke about the token, the protocol, or unrelated. Skorn and NineIronCapital separately discussed D3M mechanics, with Skorn noting the post-ESM D3M ambiguity (above).

NineIronCapital's March 2024 tweet on RH using sDAI as a governance bridge:

On 1 March 2024, NineIronCapital published a tweet that directly links sDAI to a specific mechanism Richard Heart was using to rebuild pDAI governance infrastructure:

"sacrifice → AAVE → sDAI → Bridge → pAAVE; RH is using liquid staking to rebuild the governance structures of pDAI." — NineIronCapital, Twitter, 1 Mar 2024

If accurate, this describes a flow in which Richard Heart converted HEX sacrifice proceeds into AAVE, then into sDAI, then bridged that position into PulseChain as pAAVE — reconstructing the Aave governance infrastructure on PulseChain in the process. This is directly relevant to the Spark/sDAI story: the "hidden sDAI bags" hypothesis is not just about passive peg appreciation but about sDAI being used as a vehicle to reconstitute governance control across forked DeFi protocols.

7. Open Questions

Evidence status: All claims are Telegram-sourced from the pDAI Chat Export unless labelled otherwise. Reliable sources per user specification: IronClad, NineIronCapital, SigewulfCW3. Technical D3M mechanics (Section 4) are corroborated by the PDAI_REPEG_WORKBOOK.md. On-chain verification of D3M contract activity and sDAI fork state is recommended before citing externally.