18 November 2021: Today, Maple Finance has launched an on-chain vehicle for Alameda Research, the $30 billion dollar quantitative trading firm, to syndicate loans directly from accredited institutional investors around the world.
The first lenders are industry leaders including CoinShares, Abra, and Ascendex in the whitelisted cohort. This is the first DeFi syndicated loan created specifically for large-cap institutions to access debt capital markets by using the Ethereum blockchain.
Maple’s infrastructure has enabled Alameda to establish an on-chain borrowing vehicle that serves their needs by creating a single-borrower lending pool.
“The crypto trading landscape has evolved very quickly over the past few years, and we expect it to continue to do so. The flexibility that comes from a decentralized, on-chain lending platform like this one helps Alameda adapt to that landscape, and we look forward to seeing it grow,” said Alameda’s co-CEO Sam Trabucco.
Unlike traditional debt capital markets activity which is usually one-off transactions requiring months of lead time, this DeFi syndicated loan can be expanded at any time. This allows Alameda to borrow more over time, with the goal being to access $1 billion within the next 12 months.
Being the sole borrower in the pool means that Alameda is able to leverage its high profile to, over time, get more competitive pricing and volume as institutions clamour to participate.
“It is a sign of the times that Alameda, a multi-billion dollar institution, is now using a blockchain platform to access Debt Capital Markets. This sets a precedent for how traditional finance institutions can enter and take advantage of the under-collateralized DeFi lending market. The old way of investment banks using a Bloomberg terminal and excel spreadsheet to raise debt is becoming outmoded and the market is voting with its feet,” said Maple Finance’s CEO & Co-Founder Sid Powell.
Lending in this DeFi syndicated loan is restricted to accredited non-US institutions. This allows lenders to feel confident, knowing that the other participants in the pool have also been through AML and KYC processing. This has enticed the interest from large traditional finance participants to sign up for the waitlist to this pool.
Leading the first cohort of lenders is CoinShares, Europe’s longest-standing digital asset investment firm.
Jean-Marie Mognetti, CEO of CoinShares commented “With seven years of crypto trading experience at CoinShares, we see the future of capital markets moving on-chain and becoming global, distributed, and operating 24/7/365. Over the last year, the Maple team has been a phenomenal partner to our growing DeFi book, and we’re proud to provide capital to borrowers via this new channel. As our balance sheet continues to grow, we continue to look for opportunities to play a key role in establishing new markets with exceptional teams.”
Also participating in this DeFi syndicated loan is Abra, who already runs a global lending book partnered with large, well-known counterparties including Alameda.
Quinn Thompson, Director of Institutional Credit and Lending at Abra said, “At Abra we’re big believers in decentralized finance, which in five or ten years will likely just be called ‘finance’. Annual institutional debt issuance is measured in the trillions, with many middlemen taking a cut along the way and limited access for the average individual. This is just the start of bringing all global capital markets activity on chain and we are proud to support the Maple team and expand our collaboration with Alameda in doing so.”
Alameda Research has been a long-time partner of Maple Finance, joining the ecosystem in the first cohort of borrowers at protocol launch. Since taking their first loan in May 2021, Alameda has borrowed nearly $30M across the lending pools on Maple.
Last week Maple announced the launch of an industry-first permissioned institutional DeFi lending pool in partnership with BlockTower Capital and Genesis. This pool has already deployed $25M in loans to Genesis and will continue to add more accredited lenders off the waitlist after they meet onboarding requirements. The BlockTower lending pool will also scale with new institutional borrowers joining the pool over the next several months.
In addition to these new pools, Maple’s existing pools have been growing rapidly as well, bringing Maple’s total liquidity provided to over $300 million in just six months. These milestones continue to cement Maple Finance as the institutional lending infrastructure for the Web3 economy.
