Introduction

Institutional lending has been an afterthought after the fall of all major issuers in the space, including Silvergate Bank, Genesis, Blockfolio, and Celsius, as well as their high-profile borrowers such as Alameda Research and 3AC. The total market size of institutional lending in crypto today is just a third of what it was at its peak.

However, momentum is returning, both in terms of actual flows into the sector as well as pledged interest and investment from key institutions outside of crypto. Maple dominates the onchain institutional lending space, but decentralized protocols make up just 7.5% of the total $12B institutional lending sector, leaving a lot of room for growth. $SYRUP, Maple’s native token, stands out as the primary vehicle to get liquid token exposure to onchain institutional lending. Maple has outlived its centralized competition, reaching $1.27B in TVL, the only decentralized institutional lending platform of this magnitude.