Maple Finance

Based in Australia, Maple Finance offers permissioned corporate lending facilities via cryptocurrency asset pools. Delegators of the pools can determine interest rates, loan value, and payment terms based on each borrower's profile. The platform also provides native token “MPL,” which can be staked and is used for paying interest to lenders.

As of August 2022, the platform offered seven lending pools denominated in both stablecoins and other tokens, such as wETH. This included two lending pools worth USD 40 million and USD 300 million to provide lending facilities to crypto market makers, financial institutions, mid-size bitcoin miners, and digital asset infrastructure providers across North America and Australia. In January 2023, Maple Finance launched a USDC stablecoin-denominated liquidity pool for trade receivables. The pool, which can scale up to USD 100 million, enabls enterprises to receive cash advances with a discount on their tax rebates and funding programs such as Employee Retention Credit (ERC) from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

In December 2022, Maple Finance announced a major protocol update dubbed “Maple 2.0,” which includes upgrades to its withdrawal request process. The update introduced an option to schedule and prorate withdrawals and eliminate the lockup period on new deposits. Additionally, the protocol also updated its protection mechanism, introducing a feature called “first-loss capital” targeting lenders, which absorbs some losses from defaults. The protocol also announced that it would be discontinuing its lending services on the Solana blockchain in order to focus completely on Ethereum.

In May 2024, Maple Finance launched a new lending platform named Syrup, which enables individual users to earn yields by lending to crypto institutions on a fully collateralized basis. Users can deposit USDC stablecoins and receive a tokenized representation of their position called syrupUSDC. This token can be held to accumulate yield via lending rewards or used as collateral on other DeFi platforms. Moreover, the platform also planned to launch a native token named SYRUP, which will replace MPL as the Maple ecosystem’s native token.

Key customers and partnerships

In July 2024, Maple Finance partnered with Zodia Custody, a digital asset custodian, to use its services for global lending arrangements. Under the terms of the partnership, collateral pledged to Maple Finance will be held by Zodia Custody. Moreover, it will also introduce support for Maple’s native token, within Zodia’s custody wallets. The companies stated that the integration will be available by early Q3 2024.