Maple Finance, a DeFi lending platform, announced the launch of a USDC stablecoin-denominated liquidity pool for trade receivables. 

The pool, which can scale up to USD 100 million, will enable 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). 

Companies that meet the borrowing criteria (know-your-customer and anti-money laundering checks) can commit their receivables as collateral for loans and investors can earn a return after the IRS transfers the credit. The company stated that the target yield of the liquidity pool is 10% annualized, with a minimum investment of USD 500,000 in USDC and a 45-day lockup period. 

Analyst Quicktake: This launch indicates that Maple is moving away from uncollateralized lending to crypto trading firms to focus more on traditional strategies of yield generation. The news comes just a month after the protocol, which accrued a total of USD 54 million in “troubled debt”, announced that it would be discontinuing its lending services on the Solana blockchain to focus completely on Ethereum. It also cut ties with Orthogonal Trading , a crypto trading firm, during the same period, after the company defaulted on all four of its active loans worth USD 31 million on Maple's USDC stablecoin pool (close to 80% of the value of the entire pool).