By
Chainwire
April 25th, 2024
Genesis will be the sole provider of capital making it the largest starting pool size recorded on Maple Finance. Trading firms like Wintermute and Amber Group have shown interest to borrow.
Genesis, one of the biggest lending and trading platform in the crypto space, announced its $75 million investment into Maple’s Solana-based lending platform. With this move, Genesis is further expanding its presence in the world of decentralized finance (DeFi).
The investment in Maple Solana will also make Genesis the first centralized trading firm to serve as a pool delegate. Furthermore, with the $75 million contributions, Genesis will also be the sole provider of capital making it the largest starting pool size recorded on Maple Finance. Commenting on the development, Genesis co-head of lending and trading, Matt Ballensweig said:
“Maple Solana allows Genesis to combine aspects of traditional finance and DeFi. We are creating financing options for firms who need capital to trade, with the infrastructure required in traditional finance and the efficiency DeFi offers. Maple has created a frictionless way to settle loans to these businesses”.
Maple launched its Solana platform earlier this year in 2022. Besides, it also runs a lending platform on Ethereum as well.
Crypto Firms Moving towards DeFi
The latest investment by Genesis into Maple shows that crypto firms have started leaning towards decentralized finance (DeFi) for trading and lending out funds. Note that the $75 million investment is a very small part of Genesis’s total loan book which was over 444 billion back in March 2022.
The company’s subsidiary Genesis Capital originates tens of billions of dollars worth of loans every year. From the pool operated by Genesis, trading firms like Wintermute and Amber Group have shown interest to borrow.
Genesis said that running part of their loan book through Maple’s infrastructure will translate into lower operating costs by replacing traditional software with on-chain capabilities. Unlike traditional markets, the barrier to entry to the Maple ecosystem is limited.
Any “sophisticated” underwrite can form a pool on Maple. Borrowers on the platform can undergo a due diligence process overseen by pool delegates to mitigate credit risks. Speaking to The Block, Maple’s founder Sid Powell said:
“We fully expect most of the large CeFi players in crypto to utilize Maple’s infrastructure to enhance their on-chain lending businesses over the next year”.
Maple has been doing very well even in this current market volatility. It claims that none of its borrowers have missed interest payments since its inception in May 2021.