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Maple is 2024’s fastest-growing DeFi project and leader in institutional lending on-chain. It has quickly positioned itself as the preferred marketplace for users seeking high-yield lending opportunities and full transparency on how the yield is generated. Over the course of this year, Maple has defied broader market stagnation, increasing its total value locked (TVL) by 500%+. This growth can partly be attributed to the launch of Syrup in July. Syrup builds on Maple Finance’s robust lending infrastructure, providing depositors with permissionless access to its core institutional product and consistently high, fixed-rate yields. The impressive increase in TVL throughout 2024 demonstrates the growing appetite for on-chain credit solutions among institutions and the increasing demand for sustainable institutional-grade yields. 

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Since its founding, Maple has operated through its own native token, MPL, which has served multiple use cases within the ecosystem. On November 13th, the SYRUP token was launched, replacing MPL and enabling holders to stake and participate in the ecosystem's growth. As part of the transition to SYRUP, 1 MPL will convert to 100 SYRUP, with no dilution for existing MPL token holders.

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Maple Finance 101

Maple Finance, founded in 2021 by Joe Flanagan and Sid Powell, originally entered the DeFi space with a mission to bridge the gap for undercollateralized lending—a segment largely underserved by competing protocols. Fast forward to 2024, Maple has now become DeFi's Institutional Lender, mainly focused on overcollateralized loans. Maple distinguishes itself with a focus on transparency and security, catering to institutional borrowers who undergo stringent credit underwriting and adhere to KYC/AML standards. Over the past three years, Maple has facilitated over $5 billion in institutional loans, continually broadening its offerings to deliver competitive yield on stablecoins and digital assets.

Maple’s success is grounded in its expertise with real-world assets (RWAs) and high-yield lending solutions, leveraging blockchain to foster an efficient, transparent, and institutional marketplace. This unique synergy of traditional finance principles—compliance and risk management—with cutting-edge proprietary smart contract technology has established Maple as a premier on-chain partner for institutional borrowers and lenders.

Strategic partnerships and successful funding rounds have further strengthened Maple’s reputation and growth. Since its inception, Maple has raised significant capital, beginning with a $1.4 million seed round led by Polychain Capital in 2021 and continuing with an Initial DEX Offering (IDO) that raised $2.5 million. More recently, Maple secured $5 million from prominent investors such as BlockTower Capital and Framework Ventures, underscoring confidence in its future growth.

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As a result, Maple has amassed an impressive list of ecosystem partners and clients, with collaborations including:

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• Coinbase
• Jito 
• OKX Ecosystem
• Figment
• Anchorage
• Circle
• Pendle 
• ether.fi
• Lombard 

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Maple and the DeFi “Renaissance”

Over the past two years, DeFi has been experiencing a resurgence, often described as the "DeFi renaissance." At the core of this movement is a collective return by founders, developers, and users to building more transparent, verifiable, and resilient on-chain financial systems. This shift is largely a response to the failures of many centralized entities (Celsius, FTX, etc.) during the 2022 market downturn.

These collapses, marked by risk mismanagement and fraud, eroded public trust in centralized intermediaries, revealing inherent vulnerabilities. Consequently, demand for decentralized, institutional-grade alternatives to underpin the DeFi sector has surged. Within this context, Maple stands out, pioneering transparent, compliant, and institutional-grade lending solutions in DeFi to fill a gap left by centralized companies' failures and unaddressable by permissionless protocols like Aave and Sky.

Maple focuses on crypto-native institutions, a growing DeFi trend that connects traditional finance with blockchain’s decentralized infrastructure. Where platforms such as Aave and Sky primarily serve retail and DeFi-native users with flexible, permissionless borrowing, Maple takes a distinctly institutional approach. It offers consistent yield outperformance of 5-10% over its peers through issuing fixed-rate, overcollateralized loans with robust risk management. 

Unlike traditional off-chain lending platforms, Maple leverages blockchain's transparency, making each loan, collateral detail, and transaction visible and verifiable on-chain and in the application directly. Having all this information readily available and immutable builds trust with lenders and promotes accountability. 

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Growth Story and Product-Market Strength

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2024 Growth

Maple Finance has experienced remarkable growth over the past year, with its Syrup platform driving significant increases in both Total Value Locked (TVL) and revenue. In Q3 of 2024 alone, Maple’s TVL surged by 70% quarter-over-quarter, reaching $400+ million. Much of this growth was driven by Syrup’s USDC and USDT pools, which expanded from $10 million to $160 million in a single quarter.

Annualized revenue also grew substantially (100%+ quarter-over-quarter), with paid revenue up ~230% in the same period. This performance underscores Maple's ability to generate sustainable income, benefiting both the protocol and its stakeholders.

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In addition to the significant TVL growth, Maple has achieved a notable 400+% quarter-over-quarter increase in active liquidity providers, demonstrating the accelerating network effect over time. Maple's users are also very sticky, upsizing with an average of 3X after their first deposit. The user base is largely made up of high net-worth individuals, corporate treasuries, native DeFi funds, family offices, and a growing array of institutional clients. 

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Maple (Institutional) vs. Aave (Retail)

Aave is one of the most widely recognized and used DeFi platforms in the world, specializing in serving retail and DeFi-native users in the lend/borrow sector. The flexible, open-source, and permissionless infrastructure of Aave allows any on-chain users to participate in the lending/borrowing market across a range of assets, making it highly accessible. Innovative features like flash loans and multi-collateral pools have continued to fuel Aave’s overall growth in DeFi. However, Aave’s permissionless, retail-focused model has limitations regarding compliance and security, deterring away institutional clients.

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Aave’s open-access model lacks the rigorous KYC/AML processes required by many institutions. While Aave has introduced Aave Arc, a product with compliance features, its primary market remains the retail sector. Additionally, Aave’s reliance on variable interest rates, influenced by market demand, results in a yield structure that may be less predictable.

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In contrast to Aave’s design, Maple’s platform is purpose-built for institutional clients, offering institutional custody, fixed rate term loans, and customizable loan structures that address the gaps of variable rate money market platforms like Aave. The increased level of transparency and security appeals to institutions that require verifiable data for compliance and audit purposes and the data supports it. Maple has significantly outperformed Aave and the broader DeFi lending market over the course of 2024. 

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A prime example is Maple’s Blue Chip Secured pool. This pool prioritizes security by accepting only BTC and ETH as collateral, held at Qualified Institutional Custodians. Meanwhile, the Maple High Yield Secured pool delivers higher returns by underwriting loans backed by select alternative digital assets and reinvesting eligible collateral into staking. Syrup’s mandate is a hybrid, where roughly half the loans are backed by BTC and the balance from altcoins and DeFi integrations like Pendle-PT or Lombard LBTC.  

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SyrupFi – DeFi Access to Institutional Lending

Syrup, launched by Maple four months ago, has quickly scaled to almost 300M in TVL and gives access to Maple's institutional lending engine directly in DeFi. 

Syrup users can simply connect their wallet, make a deposit and get access to consistent high yield generated with overcollateralized loans to institutions. 

To incentivize participation, Syrup runs a Drips rewards program, where users can earn SYRUP tokens by depositing into the platform and take a variety of actions including lock-ups and depositing through partners. 

Syrup has secured a wide range of partnerships, including launching a Pendle pool, being deeply integrated into the OKX ecosystem, and receiving an allocation from the EtherFi liquid USD vault. 

Both Maple and Syrup are governed by the newly launched SYRUP token, which is the next generation of MPL which is completely migrating over. The new token aligns the interests of all participants and allows everyone to participate in the growth of the ecosystem through staking rewards. 

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Maple Finance Economics

The Maple Finance platform was originally only underpinned by its native token, MPL, which was intended to fill central roles for the platform, including governance, staking, and fee distribution within the ecosystem. However, as of November 2024, SYRUP will now take on that role.

The initial distribution of the MPL token was structured as follows:

• Seed Investors, Team, and Advisors: 51% of the total supply, subject to a 24-month linear vesting schedule.
• Treasury: 14% allocated to the Maple Treasury for protocol development and ecosystem growth.
• Public Sale: 5% sold during a public auction to foster community involvement.
• Liquidity Mining Incentives: 30% designated to reward participants who provide liquidity and support the platform's operations.

As of 2024, MPL has a market capitalization of over $200 million with a circulating supply of 7.8 million tokens. The total supply of MPL is capped at 10 million tokens. The Maple Treasury generates revenue through fees collected by the protocol, including an annualized management fee (15-20% of interest paid to lenders) and a 25 bps annualized borrower fee. MPL token holders periodically voted on how these funds were utilized, with options including MPL token buybacks to hold in the treasury, allocating funds to the Maple DAO for operations and growth, or distributing fees directly to MPL holders.

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SYRUP Token: Mechanics and Value Proposition

The SYRUP token was launched on November 13, 2024, as Maple Finance’s latest initiative to expand and improve its institutional DeFi ecosystem. SYRUP will serve as both a governance and staking token, providing increased utility to holders while driving Maple’s next phase of growth. 

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Tokenomics of SYRUP

As part of the launch, SYRUP has replaced Maple’s MPL token, requiring MPL holders to migrate their tokens at Syrup.fi/convert. The conversion rate is 1:100, meaning one MPL will be converted to 100 SYRUP tokens. This allows existing MPL holders to easily transition to the new token and begin receiving staking rewards. However, it should be noted that holding SYRUP is not a prerequisite for accessing the platform's yield opportunities. 

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The total maximum supply of SYRUP is expected to be set at just over 1.2 billion tokens, a figure that includes the conversion from MPL as well as planned token inflation and issuance schedules outlined in Maple Improvement Proposal 009 (MIP-009). Importantly, this transition will not dilute the holdings of MPL owners; instead, SYRUP will replace MPL entirely, ensuring that the Maple platform operates with a single governance and staking token model, eliminating any need to manage two tokens in parallel.

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Value Accrual Mechanisms

SYRUP’s value is intrinsically supported by a revenue-sharing model that directly benefits stakers. Maple’s protocol generates revenue from management fees on loans issued to institutional borrowers, which are distributed to SYRUP stakers. All fees generated by the Maple protocol go straight to the Treasury, allowing token holders to vote on what happens with the fees generated. This revenue can be used to invest in growth opportunities to create more future revenue and conduct buybacks of SYRUP from the open market, which can be provided as staking rewards to SYRUP holders.

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Through this buyback and staking rewards model, SYRUP provides a recurring revenue stream to active participants. SYRUP’s staking mechanism provides token holders with a straightforward way to earn yield from the protocol’s revenue, with projected APYs around 10%. On top of the fee-generated revenue, 5M SYRUP tokens will be distributed to stakers in the first three months post-launch, increasing the yield. 

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Utility and Governance

SYRUP introduces a decentralized governance structure, allowing holders to have a direct voice in shaping Maple’s future. Through voting rights granted to SYRUP holders, Maple aims to decentralize key decisions, empowering the community to drive protocol upgrades, adjust fee structures, and determine strategic directions.

Governance proposals can be submitted by SYRUP holders who meet a minimum holding threshold, ensuring that committed participants influence significant decisions. Each SYRUP token represents one vote, allowing holders to exercise proportional influence based on their stake. Governance topics can include critical areas such as:

• Protocol Upgrades: Changes to Maple’s smart contracts, product enhancements, or new feature rollouts.
• Treasury Allocations: Decisions on how Maple’s treasury funds are used, whether for ecosystem development, partnerships, or buyback initiatives.

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Future Outlook

As the DeFi market continues to expand, Maple is well-positioned to capitalize on this growth. The launch of the SYRUP token represents a strategic move to enhance user engagement and align stakeholders with the platform’s success. SYRUP incentivizes long-term commitment from both institutional and individual token holders by enabling staking rewards coming from the protocol treasury and governance participation. This growth-driven, compliance-focused approach reinforces Maple’s standing as a leading platform for institutions seeking secure, transparent, and sustainable DeFi lending opportunities.

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Disclaimer: This report was commissioned by Maple Finance. This research report is exactly that — a research report. It is not intended to serve as financial advice, nor should you blindly assume that any of the information is accurate without confirming through your own research. Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and other digital assets are incredibly risky and nothing in this report should be considered an endorsement to buy or sell any asset. Never invest more than you are willing to lose and understand the risk that you are taking. Do your own research. All information in this report is for educational purposes only and should not be the basis for any investment decisions that you make.