Instead of it being (supposedly) backed by a dollar reserve, it's collateralized by ETH and several ERC20 tokens in a smart contract. The smart contract does things to make DAI tend toward $1. It's been out for years and I think it has worked pretty well: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/multi-collateral-dai/
It works through collateralized loans.
If you want to really blow your mind, check out RAI: https://stats.reflexer.finance/
I am interested in someone making a CPI coin, that tracks some value of a basket of goods instead of another currency. I think that would be sort of the ultimate inflation hedge because ideally the value would not change at all over the long run.
In the absence of that backing you can create a purely synthetic asset that can only track CPI if you've got the ability to withdraw significant quantities from circulation every time the value starts to drop. (That's sort of what central banks do with targeting a fixed non-zero rate of CPI inflation. But they have an economy built on debt so the money supply can contract organically by debts being repaid faster than new debts are issued. This is less troubling for the future of a coin than alternative strategies like having to use VC/company funds to buy back coins, or making a percentage of coins disappear)
I couldn't tell from the link.
* The interest owed on loaned DAI (called a stability fee) changes depending on the market price. So if DAI goes too high, the stability fee increases which makes getting a DAI loan less attractive. If the market price goes too low, the stability fee drops. If it drops to 0, this would mean interest free collateralized loans.
* There is a savings account smart contract that generates a variable savings rate on DAI. The savings rate changes depending on the market price.
* There is the Target Rate Feedback Mechanism which frankly I don't understand. It has something to do with changing the amount your collateral is worth depending on DAI's market price.
* When the value of the collateralized asset drops to some defined percentage of the DAI withdrawn (currently 150% I think?), the smart contract can liquidate and auction off that asset for the value of the withdrawn DAI. This increases the value of DAI and also ensures that all DAI is overcollateralized.
* MKR token holders function as the governance for DAI and vote on stuff, like the collateralization rate mentioned above. They get rewards for holding MKR and in normal circumstances the amount of MKR is static. But in the event of a black swan, if the collateralized assets drop to below 1:1 faster than the normal system can handle, MKR is automatically generated and sold to raise the additional collateral needed. This devalues MKR in order to keep DAI stable.