Maple Finance is back in the spotlight with metrics soaring to new highs.
Last month Maple raked in over $1 million in revenue, an increase of over 10 times from this time last year. And it’s already over $800,000 this month.
“If our current revenue run rate annualised is around $11 million, and our target for the end of the year is to be doing $25 million annualised, that could generate around $15 million of free cash flow.”
Investor deposits, or TVL as it’s called in the industry, hit a new high of over $2.2 billion, a fourfold increase since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, the total of outstanding loans reached $800 million.
After almost collapsing during FTX’s fall, the DeFi lending protocol has made a massive resurgence.
Just like Euler Finance which also made a spectacular recovery after a $200 million exploit, Maple’s resurgence offers lessons in an industry built on fragile trust.
“Maple’s resurgence is rooted in discipline”, Powell said, “through tighter credit underwriting, direct lending managed in-house, and product innovation that matches real market needs.”
Due to a variety of partnerships and a shift towards targeting institutions, the project has targeted the real-world asset, or RWA, lending market.
However, Maple faces fierce competition from major projects such as Blockrock’s BUIDL and Ethena Finance.
“Over time, we’ll have to come up with more advanced and sophisticated structures to continue to stay ahead of the game,” said Powell.
Crash and revival
FTX’s November 2022 collapse marked the start of a tough stretch for Maple. The fallout deepened the following month when Orthogonal Finance, one of Maple’s institutional borrowers, defaulted on $36 million worth of loans.
This affected between 30% and 80% of the investors in the correlated lending pools and led to a crash in investor confidence. Deposits dropped by 97%, from over $900 million to only $25 million.
Maple acted fast, making large changes that helped jumpstart its revival. First, it switched its business model from credit-based lending to over-collateralised lending, a change that dramatically reduced the likelihood that users would be affected by others’ defaults.
Maple also started underwriting the loans itself, eliminating the risk of counterparties defaulting.
It has expanded beyond just stablecoins, accepting major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana as collateral.
In 2024, Maple introduced new ways to earn yield on stablecoins. USDC or USDT lenders receive a token in the form of syrupUSDC or syrupUSDT. These automatically accrue a yield and can be used across a variety of DeFi platforms.
Key advancements and partnerships
Maple’s comeback has also been highlighted by its extensive partnerships with institutions and other DeFi protocols.
“More and more traditional asset managers are going to be looking at crypto. You’re going to have to have a lot of insurance companies, pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds bring larger balance sheets to bear. It’s kind of the only way you can grow,” said Powell.
Earlier this year, Maple introduced two new products that it hopes will appeal to institutional investors. The first is a Bitcoin yield product that offers exposure to Bitcoin while providing extra yield.
It also introduced structured notes, a financial instrument that combines a bond with a derivative. This is targeted towards investors seeking a stable yield while having exposure to price increases.
“I don’t know that we’re really competing with those TradFi players yet. But I do think that they’re going to be knocking on the door soon,” Powell said.
Maple’s focus on institutional investors has attracted major players. In March, Bitwise, a major crypto asset manager with over $12 billion in assets under management, announced making its first DeFi allocation using Maple.
In May, Maple announced that it closed the first tranche of Bitcoin-backed financing from global investment bank Cantor. This allows for up to $2 billion in financing from institutional Bitcoin holders to lend their Bitcoin holdings to Maple.
Maple has also established key partnerships with prominent DeFi projects to attract onchain traders and asset managers.
In April, DeFi protocol Spark announced its $50 million allocation into Maple with the potential to scale to $100 million.
A wave of partnerships and collaborations have strengthened Maple. DeFi projects such as Morpho and Pendle have provided users with various options on how to boost yield on their Maple-backed assets. Maple has also integrated with the Solana liquid staking protocol, Marinade, and the Ethereum staking protocol, Lido.
Most recently, Maple launched syrupUSD on Solana in an integration with Solana’s largest lending platform, Kamino. This enables users to leverage their positions up to four times their initial investment through looping.
Initially, the cap was set at $30 million, but after $20 million was deposited within the first four days, the cap was raised to $50 million with plans for further expansion in the future.
“Ultimately, we want to be doing hundreds of millions on Solana,” Powell said.
When asked about the potential of exploring other blockchains, Powell said, “As on-chain finance matures, we see a multi-chain future, and we’re positioning Maple to support high-quality borrowers across those environments.”
With future partnerships and the growth of the lending sector, Powell said Maple aims to reach $4 billion in assets under management by the end of the year.
