Maple Finance (SYRUP)

Figures from combined_metrics.json and the underlying Maple report; rows labeled DefiLlama are on-chain aggregator pulls, rows labeled official are company-reported.

Business overview

Maple (founded 2019, Australia origins) is an on-chain institutional asset manager and credit marketplace. It originates and services overcollateralized stablecoin loans to institutional borrowers — trading firms, market makers, fintech lenders — and packages the yield into products for lenders. Unlike pooled permissionless money markets such as Aave or Morpho, Maple runs an actively underwritten credit book with traditional capital-markets structures: bankruptcy-remote SPVs, senior subordination, independent administration.

Two product lines: Maple Institutional (permissioned credit — secured lending, structured products, bespoke facilities such as the June 2026 Kraken OTC warehouse facility) and Syrup.fi (permissionless DeFi front-end — deposit USDC/USDT/USDG, receive yield-bearing syrupUSDC, syrupUSDT, and since July 2026 syrupUSDG, live on Ethereum and Robinhood Chain). syrupUSD tokens see ~$8.5B in monthly transfer volume per the 1inch integration announcement (2026-07-21).

Scale per the official Q2 2026 update: AUM $4.6B, up 81% YoY; loans outstanding at an all-time high of $1.9B, up 123% YoY; YTD originations $5.4B and $22B+ cumulative since 2022; Q2 revenue $4.4M (+47% YoY); ARR $17.5M; deposits $2.2B with $1.03B net inflows in H1. The book grew ~22% in H1 while the broader DeFi lending market contracted 31%.

Team & backers

Co-founders Sidney Powell (CEO) and Joe Flanagan (Executive Chairman); Matt Collum (CTO) and Ryan O'Shea (COO). Team backgrounds span J.P. Morgan, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, BlackRock, PIMCO, Galaxy Digital and Amazon.

Disclosed funding is notably lean for a protocol of this scale — about $7.7M total: a $1.3M seed (Dec 2020; Framework, Alameda Research, Stani Kulechov, Kain Warwick, FBG, The LAO), a $1.4M round (Mar 2021; Framework, Polychain), and a $5M strategic round (Aug 2023; BlockTower, Tioga, Room40, Cherry Crypto, Spartan, GSR, Veris, Maven 11, Framework). Alameda's early seed participation is a historical association worth knowing; it did not prevent Maple's post-FTX recovery.

Evolution — a survivor's track record

• 2021 – mid-2022Undercollateralized lending to crypto trading firms via Pool Delegates (M11 Credit, Orthogonal Credit). Rapid growth, then the Terra/3AC credit crunch.
• Jul 2022Babel Finance default (~$10M; ~3.4% lender haircut on the affected pool).
• Dec 2022Orthogonal Trading default — $36M (~30% of active loans) after misrepresenting FTX exposure. Total sour debt ~$54M; loan book collapsed $260M → $82M; MPL fell ~50% to its all-time low.
• 2023Maple 2.0: full pivot to overcollateralized, secured lending with smart-contract-enforced collateral and margin calls. Token recapitalization: MIP-009/010 create SYRUP (1 MPL = 100 SYRUP, ~1.155B initial mint).
• 2024syrupUSDC launches — the permissionless growth engine (10.6% annualized at Q1 2025 per Oak Research).
• 2025Migration completed (final extension May 21). Coinbase (Q1), Binance + Upbit (Jul 25 — daily volume spiked $230M → $862M). MIP-018/019 raise the revenue share to 25% to the Syrup Strategic Fund and end inflationary stSYRUP rewards in favor of buybacks. ATH $0.6532 late July 2025.
• Nov 2025Core Foundation injunction (Cayman Grand Court, FSD 2025-0268) blocks syrupBTC and CORE token dealings pending arbitration.
• H1 2026Record half: Kraken warehouse facility (Jun 25), Tempo integration (Jun 11), syrupUSDG on Robinhood Chain (Jul), 1inch routing (Jul 21), and MIP-021 rules-based buybacks passed Jul 17.

Tokenomics & value accrual

• 93.5% of supply already circulating — 1.164B of 1.245B total (on-chain verified via Alchemy, matching CoinGecko). No VC-style unlock cliff; the final inflation tranche ends ~Sep 2026 at ~1.23–1.27B.
• 179.2M SYRUP staked as stSYRUP (~15.4% of circulating); inflationary staking rewards were ended by MIP-019 in favor of revenue-funded buybacks.
• MIP-019: 25% of all monthly protocol revenue routes to the Syrup Strategic Fund (SSF) — there is no separate equity structure; revenue stays in the token-holder structure.
• MIP-021 (passed 99.97% on 2026-07-17): rules-based buybacks — 10% of monthly revenue below $1.5M, 20% at $1.5–2M, 30% above $2M — for a 6-month program, with first buybacks expected in August 2026 and public tracking on a Transparency Dashboard. This converts SYRUP from a pure governance token into a revenue-linked asset.
• Buybacks executed to date: 8M SYRUP in 2025 and 2.5M in 2026 YTD (deliberately paused pending the rules-based framework).

Valuation discussion

At a $209.9M market cap, SYRUP trades at roughly 2.0x annualized fees ($105.8M), ~16x DefiLlama annualized revenue ($13.1M), ~9.5x official LTM revenue ($22.0M), ~12x official ARR ($17.5M), and ~4.6% of official AUM ($4.53B). On revenue multiples it is the cheapest large-cap "lending with real revenue" token except Sky (a different, stablecoin-issuer model): Aave trades near ~34x annualized revenue and Pendle near ~28x. The token is down 72.5% from its ATH and still trades as if the 2022 undercollateralized default cycle were the base case, despite the pivot to overcollateralized secured lending and a growing AUM base.

The honest counterweight: direct token capture is weaker than the business headline. DefiLlama holders revenue annualized is only $3.52M, so market cap / holders revenue is ~60x. At the current official monthly revenue of $1.29M, the first MIP-021 tier implies only ~$1.55M of annualized buyback capacity; the model becomes much more interesting above $2M monthly revenue (30% tier, ~$7.2M annualized). The valuation case therefore rests on revenue growth plus visible buyback execution — not on multiple compression alone.

Risks (ranked)

• Core Foundation litigation (active). A Cayman injunction blocks syrupBTC and CORE dealings pending arbitration. Core alleges misuse of confidential lstBTC partnership information and breach of a 24-month exclusivity clause while amassing $150M in client BTC; Maple denies wrongdoing. The court found a "serious issue to be tried." An adverse outcome means damages, institutional reputational damage, and loss of the BTC product line.
• Credit / counterparty risk. The 2022 record ($54M sour debt from a borrower that misrepresented its finances) is the canonical tail risk for underwritten on-chain credit. The current book is overcollateralized with on-chain margin calls — structurally better, but institutional concentration remains.
• Revenue volatility. July 2026 daily revenue is tracking well below the Q2 run-rate (DefiLlama Q3-to-date earnings ~$410K, down from $3.16M in Q2). Rate compression or loan-book contraction directly cuts MIP-021 buybacks — the token's core value-accrual lever.
• Thin liquidity. ~$7M daily token volume and ~$2.9M DEX liquidity (~$11M 30d Ethereum DEX volume per Dune); large entries and exits depend on CEX depth.
• Treasury / governance concentration. Third-party estimates put DAO/SSF-controlled supply near ~40% (unverified); buyback discretion sat with the SSF until MIP-021.
• Regulatory. syrupUSDC and Tempo products are explicitly not offered to US persons; US distribution runs through partners (Robinhood).
• History / associations. Early Alameda seed participation; the 2022 defaults; the MPL→SYRUP migration burned holders who missed the deadline.

Catalysts (next 6–12 months)

• August 2026: first MIP-021 rules-based buybacks plus the public Transparency Dashboard.
• Robinhood Earn phased rollout of the syrupUSDG-collateralized vault — the first DeFi lending product inside the Robinhood app.
• Kraken warehouse facility scaling — a repeatable template for other originators.
• Tempo (Stripe/Paradigm-incubated) enterprise fintech integrations — syrupUSDC as embedded stablecoin yield.
• Core arbitration resolution in either direction — a settlement removes an overhang.
• Potential US crypto market-structure legislation; Grayscale's 2026 outlook names institutional DeFi lending a beneficiary and lists Maple alongside Aave and Morpho as sector leaders.

• Data stack: CoinGecko official CLI (paid tier) for market data and price history; DefiLlama (API and protocol pages) for TVL, fees, revenue and income statements; Dune CLI for on-chain DEX volume; Alchemy CLI for on-chain supply verification (eth_call); Exa for web research and news pulls.
• As-of timestamp: all market and fundamental figures are live pulls as of 2026-07-22 ~19:00 UTC. Company-reported figures (Maple AUM, ARR, revenue) are labeled as such throughout, both here and in the underlying report.
• Definitions: "annualized" figures are DefiLlama's annualized run-rates; "trailing 1y" sums the last 365 days; "official LTM" is Maple's reported last-twelve-months revenue. Price returns and drawdowns are computed from CoinGecko daily closes; the 365-day series embedded in this site runs 2025-07-23 to 2026-07-22 (366 points, including the current intraday print).
• Artifacts: the underlying report (maple_syrup_report.md), combined_metrics.json and raw API/CSV dumps are retained in the research repository alongside this site.

Full source index from the underlying report. Descriptions preserved from maple/sources/sources.md (compiled 2026-07-22). Links open in a new tab.