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💡 Maple Finance offers uncollateralized lending to investors through smart contract-enabled lending pools whose funds are then managed centrally by reputable companies. Uncollateralized lending is another possible critical vector of the current credit crisis. The available data offers a window into the situation of Maple’s lending pools.
Since Celsius and Three Arrows Capital set off the alarms in early June crypto has undergone a chain reaction of interconnected credit defaults that have led to great stress in this sector.
At least six crypto lenders had to halt operations at some point to contain the bleeding (Celsius, Vauld, Coinflex, Babel Finance, Voyager, and Coinloan); three are bankrupt (Three Arrows Capital, Voyager Digital, and Celsius); two have received bailouts from other companies in the industry (BlockFi and Voyager) that are likely to become acquisitions along the road.
Most of these projects are centralized companies whose situation and decisions are opaque. Due to the transparent nature of the blockchain, we have had access to a live broadcast of some chapters of the crisis unraveling inside these companies (for example, Celsius repaying loans on different DeFi protocols).
Inside this ecosystem of interconnected lenders, there is one particular participant, which is a hybrid between a centralized company and a decentralized protocol. Maple Finance is a rare breed. It is an uncollateralized lending protocol run by a combination of smart contracts and centralized asset management.
Lenders can deposit funds into pools the same way they would add capital to a liquidity pool. But pools in Maple are managed by leading credit experts. These credit experts are respected companies who will be in charge of whitelisting borrowers. It is this reasoning that entitles Maple to offer uncollateralized loans.
The conditions of the loans (collateral, if needed, mature date, interest rate) are established transparently and executed autonomously through smart contracts. At the other end of the funds, “reputable and profitable crypto-institutions” can benefit from one of the few undercollateralized lending options in the crypto space by requesting to borrow funds to pool managers.
Maple's hybrid on-chain / off-chain nature gives us a new perspective on the ongoing credit situation. We have analyzed the publicly available data from their website to understand it better.
The complete breakdown of active and matured loans is available on Maple’s website. We copied it into a spreadsheet for convenience and broad analysis.
🗃️ View spreadsheet
There are five active pools on Ethereum. These pools are managed by Orthogonal Trading, Alameda Research, Celsius, and Maven Capital (x2), and more than 30 companies have borrowed capital.
There is only one active Solana pool, managed by XMargin and used by 7 borrowers.
There are around $650M in outstanding loans: $608M in the Ethereum pools, and $39M in the Solana pool.
There is only $5.5M in collateral for all the Ethereum pools. It corresponds to loans given to Framework Labs for a total of $14M: two from Orthogonal Trading and one from Maven 11.
Two of Framework’s loans were collateralized in wBTC in February and April when BTC was moving above the $35k mark. The third was collateralized in wETH in May, when Eth stood at $2,700.
More than 80% of the outstanding debt is owed to Maven Finance, who manage two separate pools with more than $260M in debt, and Orthogonal Trading with over $244M.
More than 30 companies have active loans pending payment
Alameda Research is the main borrower in all available pools in Ethereum and Solana, with active loans up to $135M.
Alameda Research owes itself $89M from the Ethereum Maple pool they manage; on top of that, they have requested $46M from other delegates.
$89M of the loans owed by Alameda Research correspond to the lending pool managed by Alameda itself.
Alameda Research has been the only borrower of the lending pool managed by Alameda Research.
Mature dates for Alameda’s 5 pending loans span from August 3rd to September 3rd
77% of the active loans have their mature date in August (51%) or September (26%)
Maple Finance, together with Goldfinch, is one of the rare instances of uncollateralized and pseudo-decentralized lending projects in the crypto space. Uncollateralized lending brings up counterparty risks that protocols cannot hedge natively, so Maple resorted to trusted third parties to provide credibility to their system.
No evidence indicates that the actors involved in Maple Finance will aggravate the current credit crisis. The participating companies (lenders and borrowers) seem generally safe, and the amounts of capital involved are insufficient to suggest a possible chain reaction following default. Nevertheless, there are some observations and conjectures worth pointing out that reveal that this type of lending still needs to go through more iterations before it becomes trustworthy.
Two of the companies participating in Maple Finance are currently at the epicenter of the credit crisis.
Celsius manages one of the five Ethereum lending pools, with $12M in outstanding debt from Amber Group, Framework Labs, Wintermute Trading Limited, and Auros. Mature dates are in late August and late October. Until then, Celsius will not be able to reclaim the funds.
Babel Finance, who froze withdrawals on June 17th, owes $10M to Orthogonal’s pool, with November as the due date.
A vast number of the outstanding debt pertains to loans with a 180-day term; their maturity date is in August or September. If we look at the calendar, these loans were requested around February. Back then, the bear market was still uncertain, and bitcoin took a little respite thanks to the announcement of massive purchases from the Luna Foundation Guard. It is possible that some of the loans requested back then were used to deposit funds in the now defunct Anchor protocol in Terra.
https://twitter.com/stablekwon/status/1496170131042537477
The pool managed by Alameda Research only lent money to Alamed itself. Alameda was a borrower and lender of the same pool, which gave them access to funds in very favorable circumstances.
Looking at maturing dates of the loans requested by some firms, we can surmise that some loans were used to repay prior loans and request bigger sums of money. This practice is forbidden in traditional finance, but it has managed to go under the radar in Maple Fi ance.
💡 Maple Finance offers uncollateralized lending to investors through smart contract-enabled lending pools whose funds are then managed centrally by reputable companies. Uncollateralized lending is another possible critical vector of the current credit crisis. The available data offers a window into the situation of Maple’s lending pools.
Since Celsius and Three Arrows Capital set off the alarms in early June crypto has undergone a chain reaction of interconnected credit defaults that have led to great stress in this sector.
At least six crypto lenders had to halt operations at some point to contain the bleeding (Celsius, Vauld, Coinflex, Babel Finance, Voyager, and Coinloan); three are bankrupt (Three Arrows Capital, Voyager Digital, and Celsius); two have received bailouts from other companies in the industry (BlockFi and Voyager) that are likely to become acquisitions along the road.
Most of these projects are centralized companies whose situation and decisions are opaque. Due to the transparent nature of the blockchain, we have had access to a live broadcast of some chapters of the crisis unraveling inside these companies (for example, Celsius repaying loans on different DeFi protocols).
Inside this ecosystem of interconnected lenders, there is one particular participant, which is a hybrid between a centralized company and a decentralized protocol. Maple Finance is a rare breed. It is an uncollateralized lending protocol run by a combination of smart contracts and centralized asset management.
Lenders can deposit funds into pools the same way they would add capital to a liquidity pool. But pools in Maple are managed by leading credit experts. These credit experts are respected companies who will be in charge of whitelisting borrowers. It is this reasoning that entitles Maple to offer uncollateralized loans.
The conditions of the loans (collateral, if needed, mature date, interest rate) are established transparently and executed autonomously through smart contracts. At the other end of the funds, “reputable and profitable crypto-institutions” can benefit from one of the few undercollateralized lending options in the crypto space by requesting to borrow funds to pool managers.
Maple's hybrid on-chain / off-chain nature gives us a new perspective on the ongoing credit situation. We have analyzed the publicly available data from their website to understand it better.
The complete breakdown of active and matured loans is available on Maple’s website. We copied it into a spreadsheet for convenience and broad analysis.
🗃️ View spreadsheet
There are five active pools on Ethereum. These pools are managed by Orthogonal Trading, Alameda Research, Celsius, and Maven Capital (x2), and more than 30 companies have borrowed capital.
There is only one active Solana pool, managed by XMargin and used by 7 borrowers.
There are around $650M in outstanding loans: $608M in the Ethereum pools, and $39M in the Solana pool.
There is only $5.5M in collateral for all the Ethereum pools. It corresponds to loans given to Framework Labs for a total of $14M: two from Orthogonal Trading and one from Maven 11.
Two of Framework’s loans were collateralized in wBTC in February and April when BTC was moving above the $35k mark. The third was collateralized in wETH in May, when Eth stood at $2,700.
More than 80% of the outstanding debt is owed to Maven Finance, who manage two separate pools with more than $260M in debt, and Orthogonal Trading with over $244M.
More than 30 companies have active loans pending payment
Alameda Research is the main borrower in all available pools in Ethereum and Solana, with active loans up to $135M.
Alameda Research owes itself $89M from the Ethereum Maple pool they manage; on top of that, they have requested $46M from other delegates.
$89M of the loans owed by Alameda Research correspond to the lending pool managed by Alameda itself.
Alameda Research has been the only borrower of the lending pool managed by Alameda Research.
Mature dates for Alameda’s 5 pending loans span from August 3rd to September 3rd
77% of the active loans have their mature date in August (51%) or September (26%)
Maple Finance, together with Goldfinch, is one of the rare instances of uncollateralized and pseudo-decentralized lending projects in the crypto space. Uncollateralized lending brings up counterparty risks that protocols cannot hedge natively, so Maple resorted to trusted third parties to provide credibility to their system.
No evidence indicates that the actors involved in Maple Finance will aggravate the current credit crisis. The participating companies (lenders and borrowers) seem generally safe, and the amounts of capital involved are insufficient to suggest a possible chain reaction following default. Nevertheless, there are some observations and conjectures worth pointing out that reveal that this type of lending still needs to go through more iterations before it becomes trustworthy.
Two of the companies participating in Maple Finance are currently at the epicenter of the credit crisis.
Celsius manages one of the five Ethereum lending pools, with $12M in outstanding debt from Amber Group, Framework Labs, Wintermute Trading Limited, and Auros. Mature dates are in late August and late October. Until then, Celsius will not be able to reclaim the funds.
Babel Finance, who froze withdrawals on June 17th, owes $10M to Orthogonal’s pool, with November as the due date.
A vast number of the outstanding debt pertains to loans with a 180-day term; their maturity date is in August or September. If we look at the calendar, these loans were requested around February. Back then, the bear market was still uncertain, and bitcoin took a little respite thanks to the announcement of massive purchases from the Luna Foundation Guard. It is possible that some of the loans requested back then were used to deposit funds in the now defunct Anchor protocol in Terra.
https://twitter.com/stablekwon/status/1496170131042537477
The pool managed by Alameda Research only lent money to Alamed itself. Alameda was a borrower and lender of the same pool, which gave them access to funds in very favorable circumstances.
Looking at maturing dates of the loans requested by some firms, we can surmise that some loans were used to repay prior loans and request bigger sums of money. This practice is forbidden in traditional finance, but it has managed to go under the radar in Maple Fi ance.
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