OurNetwork #124

Jun 03, 2022

About the editor: Spencer Noon is Co-founder & General Partner at Variant Fund.

Job Alert: We are hiring a Data Scientist to join our investment team at Variant, click here to apply for the role.

In case you missed it, this week’s coverage on undercollateralized lending was prompted by a tweet storm I published on the topic:

Network Coverage
Coverage on Goldfinch, TrueFi, and Maple.

① Goldfinch

Goldfinch is a decentralized credit protocol with a mission to bring the world’s credit activity on-chain while expanding access to capital. The protocol offers sustainable stablecoin yields generated by real-world economic activity, and, sheltered from DeFi’s volatility, serves as a global marketplace connecting crypto investors to borrowers who are expanding economic growth in their regions. Though it is only just over a year old Goldfinch has surpassed $100m in active loans across 28 countries.

Goldfinch’s revenue, borrowing, and APYs holding steady despite the recent downturn showcases the long-term stability of bringing real-world lending to DeFi. The USDC APY for recent Pools remains unchanged at 17%, with an overall average APY of 5-10%, as yields come from real business repayments.

Goldfinch’s 30d revenue now exceeds $200k — only growing since launch. While most of DeFi lending’s revenue is down, Goldfinch connects dependable stablecoins and real-world investment to provide sustainable value.

TrueFi is an on-chain capital market, letting portfolio managers launch unsecured lending opportunities to a global base of lenders & borrowers. TrueFi has originated $1.65b in loans, received $1b+ in repayments and remains free of defaults. The protocol hosts 10 diverse portfolios across crypto-native and real world asset opportunities. The latter includes emerging market, B2B and real estate lending, offering up 13.5% APY (+16.5% with incentives). New portfolios launch almost weekly.

TrueFi is near ATHs in lending activity, with more than $450m in Total Value Outstanding (TVO). More than 10% of TrueFi’s lending comes from partnered or independently-managed portfolios, gradually focusing the protocol on real-world financing and expanding DeFi’s reach.

Efficient utilization has generated over $27m for TrueFi lenders and stakers, with protocol fees now going to DAO treasury. These yields, especially from lending into real world assets, has earned the interest of MakerDAO and Frax, who committed $200m of direct deposits in aggregate to TrueFi.

Maple is a decentralized lending protocol for crypto institutions. Current borrowers include Orthogonal Trading, Maven 11, Alameda, and Celsius. The protocol recently launched on Solana, facilitating ~$39m in total loans on the chain. Total TVL on Ethereum is tracking ~$850m, with the majority of loaned capital in the Orthogonal and Maven 11 pools; for perspective, Maple is tracking ~1/10th the TVL of Aave, one of DeFi’s largest lending protocols.

The team recently released Maple’s Q1 2022 Treasury Report, showing the protocol recently turned profitable with ~$227k net income. The project makes money by collecting 2/3 of the 0.99% loan establishment fee. TTM Revenue is approaching ~$40m.

After the recent sell-off, Maple is tracking at a P/S ratio of ~3.6x, down almost 1/3 from early April. For benchmarks, Goldfinch is tracking at ~6.4x, Aave ~14x, and Compound ~13x.