Maple: Bondholders Go On-Chain

How solid is the moat of small bond companies at the time of RWA explosion?

Maple Finance is the leader in the on-chain private credit niche. After reading the story of Maple Finance, we may find an answer.

Let's start with Sid Powell, the founder of Maple.

Sid Powell was born around 1990 and is Australian. He graduated from the University of Adelaide with a major in finance and law, and also spent time at the John Molson School of Business in Canada as an exchange student. In 2013, after graduating from university, Sid Powell's first job was as a Business Development Officer at AIESEC South Australia.

AIESEC is a global youth exchange organization and a shared memory for many university students in the 2010s. The most common project format is to organize various summer public welfare activities for university students from different schools around the world during the summer vacation. Sid Powell worked at AIESEC for a year, which was a transition before officially entering the workforce. In 2014, Sid Powell found a job that was truly aligned with his major, joining the National Australia Bank as a graduate trainee, responsible for credit risk and performance insights.

This job was part of the back-end risk control analysis and did not directly face clients. The main content involved analyzing the risk exposure of bank loans, monitoring borrowers' repayment performance and default probabilities, tracking loan quality indicators, and feeding back relevant data to the business department to help them decide whether to tighten or loosen lending standards. During this period, Sid Powell first heard about Bitcoin and, influenced by traditional financial system thinking, he, like many colleagues, thought, "This is just a scam."

After completing his graduate trainee program, Sid Powell stayed at the National Australia Bank for two years and three months, progressing from Analyst to Associate and then to Senior Associate. During this time, Sid participated in a project he would later be proud of—"issuing over $3 billion in corporate bonds."

At this point, he faced two choices: either continue to steadily build his career in a large institution and eventually become an executive in the debt capital markets or structured products department of a major Australian bank around the age of 40, responsible for helping institutional clients raise funds in the bond market or design complex structured financing solutions, managing underwriting, pricing, and investor relations; or go to a smaller institution, responsible for a broader range of business, gaining greater influence in his role and a more comprehensive business perspective.

Before revealing Sid's final choice, let's use two images to better understand the similarities and differences between the two types of institutions.

First, there is the National Australia Bank where Sid currently works. In the bond capital market, the National Australia Bank acts as an "underwriter," serving issuers such as corporations, governments, and financial institutions, designing bond terms, pricing, finding investors, organizing sales roadshows, and executing sales actions. Sid's role in this system is likely to involve supportive tasks such as due diligence, pricing, coordinating documents, and rating agencies. He cannot directly interface with clients or decide who to sell the securities to.

Next is the small financing institution Angle Finance, which extended an olive branch to Sid. Here, Sid will serve as Treasurer and Portfolio Manager, specifically considering how to raise capital and then lend it to small and medium-sized enterprises. For this, he needs to personally maintain relationships with banks and institutional investors to secure better funding support; he also needs to continuously track the performance of the loan portfolio, allocate company capital reasonably, and have significant control over the overall financial status and loan business of the company, participating in operational management and having a certain degree of decision-making power. There is no absolute superiority between the two; it is more about personal career ideals and the circumstances at the time. After some thought, Sid chose the latter.

Everything that followed seems to have a traceable path. At the new company, Sid received more comprehensive market training, changed his view on crypto, and also met his future entrepreneurial partner, Joe Flanagan.

Joe's career path is similar yet complementary to Sid's. He graduated with a degree in accounting from Saint Louis University, worked at PwC as a consultant, and later became the CFO and company secretary of the fintech company Axsesstoday, leading the company's IPO and debt and equity financing transactions totaling over $400 million. In September 2018, Peter Ferizis, the co-founder and CEO of Axsesstoday, suddenly resigned, and the company subsequently suspended trading and initiated a strategic review; the new CEO Joanna White cleaned up the management team, and on February 28, 2019, Joe was fired. Just two months later, in April 2019, Axsesstoday officially entered voluntary administration due to violations of loan terms—in other words, Joe witnessed the company he had helped manage collapse shortly after he left.

In a sense, Sid's perspective is closer to that of banks or capital providers, while Joe experienced consulting and financing and witnessed how a rapidly expanding bond company was burdened by financing structures, balance sheets, and liquidity. However, this issue would replay itself three years later.

Around the same time Joe left his old company, Sid and he co-founded Maple Finance. Initially, their idea was straightforward: to package all the bonds and loans held by traditional financial institutions and move them on-chain, using smart contracts to automatically complete risk layering, loan pool creation, investment share sales, and profit distribution. They built the entire system model. But when it came time to implement it, they found that they could not find institutions willing to hand over loan assets to Maple for on-chain processing; the asset supply side they envisioned simply did not exist.

So, in early 2020, they pivoted to create an on-chain lending market. In other words, they sought to connect those willing to lend money on-chain for interest with those willing to borrow money on-chain, facilitating transactions between them. This direction brought a new problem: scalability was difficult. Judging whether a borrower had sufficient repayment ability based solely on credit was extremely challenging. However, the model of over-collateralized loans was already occupied by institutions like Aave, Maker, and Compound, and they did not want to compete in that arena. After some consideration, they decided to focus on credit lending again, but this time not to individuals, but to institutions whose strength was easier to assess.

At this point, Maple's business model became: investors deposit USDC into Maple's fund pool ➡️ professional credit managers assess borrowing institutions ➡️ funds are lent to the assessed borrowing institutions, which pay interest ➡️ interest is deposited into the fund pool ➡️ investors receive returns. The product logic finally closed the loop. More fortunately, in 2020, the market welcomed DeFi Summer, with a large influx of funds into the on-chain lending market. By March 2021, they secured $1.4 million in seed funding led by Polychain Capital and Framework Ventures, began recruiting a full-time team, and Sid officially left Angle Finance. In May 2021, Maple officially launched its first fund pool!

However, even though the company's business flywheel began to spin, the crypto market was undergoing rapid changes. In 2022, the cryptocurrency market entered a bear market, with a series of giants collapsing: in May it was Terra, in July it was the large hedge fund 3AC, and in November it was FTX... Everyone in the market was on edge. The two hidden dangers that had been buried since Maple's inception also accelerated the deterioration of events.

The first was the operational model of pure credit lending. If it were a collateralized loan, at least the collateral could be auctioned off to recover losses, but with pure credit loans, investors' money could only go down the drain. Very few people intend to become deadbeats from the start, but at the moment when they cannot turn things around, they can only become deadbeats. Another issue was that Sid Powell and Joe Flanagan defined the company as a lending platform for light asset operations, rapid expansion, and risk isolation, providing more infrastructure without directly participating in lending activities. Most loan pools were managed by external agents (pool delegates) responsible for assessing the creditworthiness of loan companies, loan underwriting, risk management, and liquidity management.

As mentioned earlier, the first loan pool launched in May 2021 was handed over to a company called Orthogonal for management just one week after its launch, with an amount of $15 million. Orthogonal had full authority to determine whether to lend money to a certain institution. Orthogonal had two businesses: one was credit business, managing credit pools on Maple, acting as a pool delegate, known as Orthogonal Credit. The other was trading business, engaging in trading and market-making, known as Orthogonal Trading. The two identities were legally and institutionally separated.

The problem arose with Orthogonal Trading, which had deposited a large amount of funds in FTX. When FTX collapsed, the money stored there could not be retrieved. Its funding source was precisely the loan pool under Maple, specifically operated by M11 Credit. Due to the extensive business relationship with Orthogonal, when market rumors were bad, M11 Credit specifically inquired about Orthogonal Trading's situation, but they did not tell the truth. In November, they claimed that their risk exposure in FTX was only $2.5 million, so M11 did not consider them a potential defaulting borrower. It wasn't until December that Orthogonal Trading had a principal due that Orthogonal had to inform M11 that the funds they had in FTX were actually much larger, and thus they could no longer fulfill their debt obligations.

M11 finally realized that they had initially trusted Orthogonal too easily and could only take immediate action: 1. Issue default notices for all amounts owed by Orthogonal Trading, regardless of whether they were due; 2. Clearly state that they would use various means to recover the unpaid money; 3. On the smart contract level, execute on-chain defaults for related loans and calculate how much would be lost. Ultimately, they discovered a hole of about $36 million, resulting in approximately 80% loss of principal for the remaining investors in the fund pool amid a sluggish market and as other borrowers gradually repaid.

In addition to the real monetary losses, the public also began to doubt the reliability of the Maple platform. On one hand, they questioned whether moving credit business on-chain was truly feasible. Although smart contracts could eliminate many complicated steps, it was difficult to determine whether there were real assets off-chain to support it. On the other hand, they questioned Maple's management, especially since the platform had also brought in Orthogonal Credit, where one side was responsible for credit management while the other had its own trading business, and the trading business had openly defaulted. Therefore, could the department conducting credit reviews really be reliable?

In order to regain market trust, likely also due to the steadfastness of old-school bond investors, Sid Powell stepped up and publicly expressed his shock and disappointment, removing the entire Orthogonal system from the platform. At the same time, Maple realized that while work can be outsourced, when problems arise, it still affects brand reputation.

At the beginning of 2023, the company made two significant changes. The first was shifting from a "pure credit assessment unsecured model" to an "over-collateralized model," with collateral no longer limited to highly volatile cryptocurrency assets but expanded to real-world assets. The second was reclaiming part of the underwriting rights to establish MapleDirect, no longer fully relying on external credit management agencies' judgments—using Sid's own words: this gave Maple more control, but if problems arise, the risks the platform must bear are also greater.

At this point, Maple's total locked value had dropped to $15 million, with no investors optimistic about them. In an atmosphere of extreme market panic, Maple adjusted its direction for the third time. In January, Maple, in collaboration with AQRU and InteroCapital, launched the first RWA pool, with underlying assets being receivables from U.S. tax credits. Specifically: 1. The IRS issues various tax credits to eligible businesses, such as tax incentives for specific industries, but this money takes 3-5 months to reach the businesses' accounts; 2. Cash-strapped businesses sell these future receivables at a discount to companies like InteroCapital that specialize in receivables financing; 3. Intero also struggles to come up with enough cash immediately, so it borrows USDC from Maple's AQRU pool to conduct this business, with the guarantee being the tax credits that will arrive later.

On April 19, Maple launched the MapleCashManagementPool with underlying assets being U.S. Treasury bonds: 1. The U.S. Treasury issues short-term Treasury bills (T-Bills), where investors lend money to the U.S. government, which repays the principal and pays interest (generally higher than deposit rates) after a few months; 2. Ordinary DAOs, offshore companies, and Web3 funds also want to invest in T-Bills, but first, they lack U.S. dollars, only having stablecoins like USDC that are equivalent to the dollar; second, they find it difficult to open U.S. brokerage accounts and operate trades; 3. Hedge fund Room40Capital has a licensed brokerage account that can help crypto funds purchase U.S. Treasury bonds, with the source of funds being Maple's Cash Management.

Thus, Maple officially stepped into the door of RWA. Observant readers may have noticed that after a long detour, Maple's business model has, to some extent, returned to its origins: moving bonds held by traditional financial institutions onto the blockchain, but this time, they come prepared with experience and resources gained from navigating the DeFi space.

The market always favors those who can accept change and respond promptly. In August, institutional confidence began to return, and Maple secured $5 million in strategic financing, which was used for further expansion from DeFi to traditional finance.

In 2024, Maple achieved a true "turnaround." After a year of efforts in 2023, by early 2024, the total locked value had grown to $85 million, with a peak for the year exceeding $600 million, an approximately 8-fold year-on-year increase. New institutional loans issued reached $2.3 billion, with annual protocol revenue exceeding $6 million. At this point, Maple had truly achieved the right timing, location, and people. In the broader environment, the crypto bear market had ended, and institutional funds were flowing back into crypto; the scale of stablecoins was once again growing, with more and more dollars moving onto the blockchain.

Maple once again adapted to market changes, launching Syrup.fi, which allowed retail investors to participate, expanding its user base from institutions to individuals. This reform was significant for Maple because institutional investment growth is always limited, but the continuous enthusiasm of retail investors entering the market greatly nourished Maple's capital pool, making Syrup.fi one of Maple's fastest-growing businesses. By the end of that year, Syrup's total locked value had once exceeded $300 million, accounting for half of Maple's entire business.

In 2025, Maple continued to move forward, beginning to upgrade from a "lending platform" to an "asset management platform." Although the underlying business remained institutional loans, users no longer needed to care about who Maple was lending money to; they only needed to purchase yield-bearing dollar assets like syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT to earn returns from the loans. Meanwhile, Maple began collaborating with other institutions in the DeFi space to integrate its financial products into a larger capital network. For example, it partnered with Aave to allow syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT to enter Aave's lending market: users could use syrup as collateral to borrow USDC and then use the borrowed money to purchase more syrup, effectively leveraging Maple's yield products. Maple also expanded these products onto different blockchains like Solana, Arbitrum, and Base, integrating with DeFi protocols like Aave, Fluid, Kamino, and trading platforms like Binance and OKX. Maple was responsible for reviewing institutional borrowers, managing collateral, and issuing loans, while these partners helped distribute the yield products to more users.

Thus, Maple's business began to form a new cycle: institutions provide funds to Maple → Maple reviews institutional borrowers and issues loans → loans generate yields → packaged as syrupUSDC and syrupUSDT → sold to more users through Aave and exchanges → obtain more funds → Maple expands institutional loan scale again. By the end of 2025, Maple's AUM had grown from about $516 million at the beginning of the year to $4.59 billion.

In 2026, Maple's goals underwent new adjustments. If in 2025 the team was still focused on "how to attract more funds," then this year, Maple began to think about how to maximize returns with the large amount of money it had while controlling risks. On the defensive side, in April, a major attack occurred in DeFi. Although the deep collaboration with other DeFi protocols led to cross risks for Maple, they still weathered this pressure test, and platform users were not affected. On the offensive side, they continued to walk on two legs, establishing a partnership with the U.S. super financial services app Robinhood, leveraging Robinhood's brand and distribution power to gain more traditional finance and tech users. On the other hand, they diversified asset allocation. Remember that in 2023, Maple attempted to allocate expected tax credits and U.S. Treasury bonds to alleviate market panic and achieved good results. Now, the company decided to continue increasing new asset allocation strategies, including providing loans for institutional securitized assets, ABS/MBS, financing for receivables of fintech companies, asset securitization, and BTC spot-futures basis trades... Of course, Maple would not venture recklessly; they set a very important limit: each new strategy could initially account for a maximum of 5% of Maple's total deposits.

Maple's transformation from a lending platform to an asset management platform seems to have been successful. In the first half of 2026, Maple's AUM reached approximately $4.6 billion, an 81% year-on-year increase; the loan balance reached $1.9 billion, a 123% year-on-year increase. During the same period, the entire DeFi lending market contracted, while Maple continued to grow.

Finally, regarding the token aspect that ordinary investors care about most. Watching Maple navigate through challenges, experience lows, and enjoy highs, as the prospects for RWA become clearer, those who held Maple tokens from the beginning should have reaped significant rewards, right? The real answer is somewhat amusing.

If an investor bought 1 MPL at the issuance price of $5 in April 2021 and held it through the bull and bear markets until now, the return would be about 4 times. But behind this "4 times" lies an extremely bumpy journey: an MPL once soared to $68.2 at the peak of the 2021 bull market (13 times profit), then plummeted to less than $0.2 during the 2022 credit crisis (at one point suffering over 95% loss), and then experienced a token restructuring in 2024 (on November 13, 2024, the team launched a new token Syrup, with a swap rule of 1 MPL = 100 Syrup; according to this ratio, the historical high of MPL at $68.2 means that each SYRUP must sell for $0.682 to truly return to its peak). In June 2025, it rebounded to nearly the historical high of $0.65, but now it has fallen back to around $0.2, a price close to the issuance price of the new token Syrup. It seems like the entire market took a roller coaster ride, going up and down, but ultimately stopping at the starting station.

This result may just answer the initial question: how solid is the moat of a small bond company at the time of the RWA explosion?

The answer may not be optimistic. Maple's survival until today relies more on the resilience of "surviving several fatal crises" rather than on any barriers that are difficult for others to replicate. Its real advantages— the credit network built by a few Pool Delegates, deep integration with DeFi protocols like Aave, and management fees much lower than traditional private credit—are ultimately things that can be piled up with time and execution, not a true moat. In other words, what Maple currently holds is more like a "vacuum zone that traditional financial giants have not yet had time to pay attention to" rather than a fortress built on technology or licenses that others cannot invade. Once institutions like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase truly enter the field and use their capital scale and client networks to do the same thing, Maple's current advantages may not hold up.

The stagnation of token prices over the past four years is, in a sense, a side confirmation of this "weak moat": the fundamentals of the protocol—loan balances, AUM, revenue—have been steadily improving, yet the market has never given a matching, continuously rising valuation. If Maple had truly established barriers that others find difficult to surpass, capital should be willing to pay a premium for this scarcity, rather than letting the token ride the roller coaster of market sentiment, cycling for four years without any increment.

The crisis response capabilities demonstrated by Sid Powell and the team over the past few years are indeed an important reason why this protocol has managed to survive to this day without disappearing like similar projects. However, the reliability of the team and the depth of the moat are ultimately two different dimensions of the issue—the former determines whether the company can withstand crises, while the latter determines whether others can easily take your position after surviving a crisis. Maple has clearly achieved the former, but the answer to the latter may have to wait until true giants enter the field to be revealed.

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