Token Warrant From $1B collapse to comeback: Maple Finance’s journey to disrupting private lending.
In this episode of The Token Warrant, host Regan Bozeman interviews Joe Flanagan, Co-Founder of Maple Finance, and Steve Venino from BlockTower Capital. The episode focuses on Maple's evolution as a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, beginning with its lending products and the challenges faced during the recent crypto bear market. Steve shares insights into BlockTower Capital's investment strategies and their partnership with Maple, including co-leading a $5 million strategic funding round in August 2023.
01:00 The Maple Finance origin story starts in traditional finance and moving into DeFi.
04:00 Steve from Blocktower talks his background at Morgan Stanley trading to Point72 and eventually joining Blocktower.
8:30 Blocktower's Maple thesis development starting with the work via their market-neutral fund.
11:15 Joe shares the early days of Maple Finance as a full-service institutional lending marketplace and largely avoiding credit unwinding in 2022. Maple is defined as a transparent yield marketplace.
17:00 How Maple went from $1B+ in TVL to $15M and Maple's conviction is what helped give Blocktower the conviction to make the investment.
20:00 Skepticism about on-chain under-collateralized lending and the transition to secured lending.
25:00 Real World Assets (RWAs) branding from security tokens and the path to bring more assets on chain and opening up lending markets.
32:00 Joe & Steve discuss the opportunities under the Trump administration and potential unlocks afforded to builders in DeFi.
39:00 Conversion of Maple token to Syrup and the launch of the Syrup protocol, enabling institutional lending yields within the broader DeFi ecosystem.
Links:
https://maple.finance/
https://www.blocktower.com/
Twitter Links
https://x.com/spvenino33
https://x.com/joe_defi
Token Warrant
https://x.com/tokenwarrant
https://x.com/MikeZajko
https://x.com/reganbozman
https://www.lattice.fund/
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