Well, you can buy DAI on the market. The asset is collateralized at creation. Actually it is backed by ether in its first version. Now it is even multi collateralized and the former Dai has been renamed in SAI. Probably I have misunderstood the algoritmic definition: the MakerDAO contract has a set of procedure in place to deal with emergency situations (in this sense I spoke about algo: perhaps I was superficial in elaborating your text regarding this).
P.S. thank you for having upvoted my post about stellar. After having ported few from publish0X where I got to know you I will write always here before.
Following you with the intention of building a little group interested in cryptos in steem.