Speaker 1: Canter is a very well respected name in the traditional
Speaker 1: finance space and they have announced they're doing a two
Speaker 1: billion dollar bitcoin backed loan program and Maypole, along with
Speaker 1: falcon X, where two of the first two of the
Speaker 1: first borrowing partners there. So what that means is that
Speaker 1: we post bitcoin and then we borrow a larger amount
Speaker 1: from them, So I think, I think like a wholesale amount.
Speaker 2: This episode is brought to you by Treasure. Treasure makes
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Speaker 2: So to learn more about Treasure and all their great
Speaker 2: devices and services, visit the link in the description. Welcome
Speaker 2: into the Thinking Crypto Podcast. I'm your host Tony Edward
Speaker 2: and joining me today Sid Powell, who is the CEO
Speaker 2: and co founder of Maple Finance, and we're going to
Speaker 2: discuss the great news this week with Canter Fitzgerald launching
Speaker 2: bitcoin lending and integrating Maple as well.
Speaker 3: Sid. Great to have you, Thanks for having me on. Tony,
Speaker 3: very glad to be here.
Speaker 2: Yes, Sid, you and I met years ago the Propy conference.
Speaker 2: As I was mentioning before the recording, I don't know
Speaker 2: why I took this long for us to set up
Speaker 2: an interview, but I'm glad we're able to get this
Speaker 2: on the books.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too, Me too.
Speaker 1: It's definitely been a while and very very you know,
Speaker 1: very different stet of the world now.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, maybe because you know, with the environment change,
Speaker 2: the regulatory environment, the Trump administration is more favorable to
Speaker 2: create it's actually a better time to have this conversation
Speaker 2: because we can discuss innovation and not having to worry
Speaker 2: about I don't know, the SEC and other agencies attacking us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you can definitely, you can definitely be a
Speaker 1: little bit more you know, kind of kind of open
Speaker 1: and imaginative, imaginative about the innovation going on, this going
Speaker 1: on in the space. But you know, I will say
Speaker 1: that like the SEC has been, you know, been very
Speaker 1: welcoming now this year to the to the industry. They've
Speaker 1: been hosting a bunch of roundtables. So I think it's
Speaker 1: a very you know, it's a very positive dialogue happening
Speaker 1: now with them.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, it's a completely one eighty And in fact,
Speaker 2: I believe, if I'm not mistaken, I saw yesterday the
Speaker 2: next roundtables around DeFi I believe.
Speaker 1: I think so, yeah, we I think this would be
Speaker 1: the final, the final roundtable in their series. I was
Speaker 1: at the tokenization and the asset tokenization won a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks back. So they're discussing you know, things like
Speaker 1: real estate equities, you know, private credit, that type of thing.
Speaker 1: But I thought, I thought it was really positive and
Speaker 1: you know, the staff was very engaged and receptive, and
Speaker 1: I think chair. Atkins was also you know, quick to
Speaker 1: call out the benefits of tokenization, liquidity, transparency.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think I think hugely positive.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, lots of progress being made. Said, let's kick
Speaker 2: it off with your background. Tell us about yourself, your
Speaker 2: professional background, what led to starting Maple.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I, like like many in the space,
Speaker 1: I came from a traditional finance background. So I used
Speaker 1: to be in banking in an area that's called securitization.
Speaker 1: But what you need to know about that is that
Speaker 1: it was working with lending companies to help them borrow
Speaker 1: and access capital markets. And they would act almost like
Speaker 1: mini banks. They take loans, they take really big loans
Speaker 1: from banks and investors, and then they parcel those out
Speaker 1: into smaller home loans, car loans, credit card loans, and
Speaker 1: and so I was doing that in Australia and then
Speaker 1: I went to work at another lending company which is
Speaker 1: a bit smaller, bit more of a startup, but that's
Speaker 1: where I sort of really got interested in crypto and
Speaker 1: and the idea of smart contracts and DeFi and that's
Speaker 1: that's where I met my co founder and we started
Speaker 1: working on Maple. In the background, so always always been
Speaker 1: involved in kind of finance credit lending, you know, prior
Speaker 1: to starting Maple.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating because to your point, your pedigree is in
Speaker 2: finance lending, Barry and so forth. And then now you're
Speaker 2: moving that to blockchain, right and web three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're just doing the same thing on chain, and
Speaker 1: I think, you know, the the AHA moment for me
Speaker 1: was definitely when I was working at that lending company.
Speaker 1: We had to borrow from banks, and I started thinking
Speaker 1: about whether we could do tokenized bonds using smart contracts.
Speaker 1: And this was you know, this was like mid twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Then wrote a white paper early twenty nineteen. But you
Speaker 1: have to remember the space was so early back then
Speaker 1: that DeFi comprised like five companies. You know, there was
Speaker 1: maker set Protocol, Dharma, DYDX, compound, and it was so
Speaker 1: early that the idea of tokenizing bonds was you know,
Speaker 1: you didn't have anything on chain that could be tokenized,
Speaker 1: and so we we kind of had to evolve the
Speaker 1: idea from there, and so Maple went through, you know,
Speaker 1: through a kind of ideas of eventually doing direct lending itself.
Speaker 1: But since then we've really focused on the institutional segment
Speaker 1: in the market.
Speaker 2: So what goes through the different services that you offer
Speaker 2: to institutions. How can institutions leverage maple.
Speaker 3: Two ways?
Speaker 1: Primarily, so if you look at what we have today,
Speaker 1: we do the bulk of our activity is overclateralized lending,
Speaker 1: and in that instance we lend to institutions that might
Speaker 1: include trading firms, centralized exchanges, family offices or high net
Speaker 1: worth individuals, and.
Speaker 3: Hedge funds as well.
Speaker 1: And so they would post bitcoin or eth or SOUL
Speaker 1: or XRP.
Speaker 3: You know, large large cap assets.
Speaker 1: And they post them as collateral and then borrow from
Speaker 1: us against them and they use that in either op
Speaker 1: X trading activity for if it's a high net worth
Speaker 1: or a family office, they might use it for real
Speaker 1: estate investment. That was a big one that we've had recently.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And then on the other side side.
Speaker 1: Of the on the other side of that product is
Speaker 1: a yield is a yield product, and so we would
Speaker 1: have corporate treasuries, high net worths, h hedge funds, asset
Speaker 1: managers and UH and and increasingly DeFi protocols.
Speaker 3: UH. They use us as a yield product.
Speaker 1: So they might be sitting on stable coins they want
Speaker 1: to earn a yield from them. That yield ultimately comes
Speaker 1: from the loans that we originate. And then the other
Speaker 1: the other product that we've offered this year has been
Speaker 1: BTC yield product, and that's done in partnership with core Dow,
Speaker 1: which is which is an l one uh and that's
Speaker 1: that's a staking product, so we work with them. We
Speaker 1: steake BTC along with the Core Governance token. But ultimately
Speaker 1: the most important part is that for our users it
Speaker 1: looks like a yield product where they put in BTC
Speaker 1: and they get BTC yield back. So that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of the most important aspect there. But that's that's that's
Speaker 1: effectively the product sweet we offer.
Speaker 2: Very interesting. Now you mentioned earlier some of the folks
Speaker 2: who borrow against their collateral, they used the money to
Speaker 2: invest in real estate. I didn't think about that that
Speaker 2: they could take it to any other forms of investment,
Speaker 2: but I guess that's an option, right as long as
Speaker 2: everything's copasthetic with this setup.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And you know, for particularly for a high net worth
Speaker 1: who might have made their money holding crypto for a
Speaker 1: long time, they still love they still love the asset,
Speaker 1: they still love the space, They don't want to give
Speaker 1: up the upside, and so by borrowing against bitcoin or
Speaker 1: ether or soul or XRP, they're able to do that
Speaker 1: and so keep the upside they do.
Speaker 3: They also don't.
Speaker 1: Realize taxable gains by having to by not having to
Speaker 1: sell the asset. So if they had to sell the asset,
Speaker 1: they're going to have to pay about a third of
Speaker 1: it out in taxable gains, and then they're they're not
Speaker 1: going to have the future upside there. And so one
Speaker 1: example recently is we did a We've done a loan
Speaker 1: where it's a high networth who's using it to purchase
Speaker 1: a big, big piece of real estate that they intend
Speaker 1: to live in and holders an investment, and so that's
Speaker 1: a really good outcome for them. We can give them
Speaker 1: certainty on the cost of financing because we do fix rate,
Speaker 1: and they're able to keep the collateral in a qualified custodian.
Speaker 1: They don't have to put in a smart contract. The
Speaker 1: way that we do margin calls is much more user friendly.
Speaker 1: We'll reach out on Telegram or over email. We let
Speaker 1: them know, we give them twelve to twenty four hours
Speaker 1: to post margin. It's not like using a DeFi protocol.
Speaker 1: Where they might wake up one morning and boom, they've
Speaker 1: been liquidated without warning.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: That's interesting because I thought, and maybe this was how
Speaker 2: you guys had it in the past, that it was
Speaker 2: maybe part of a smart contract set up, but in
Speaker 2: fact it's at a qualified custodian so you have the separation.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Interesting, it's a hybrid.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the other reasons that institution and
Speaker 1: typically you know, choose to come to US rather than
Speaker 1: using another fully fully on chain DeFi protocol where they
Speaker 1: have to wrap the assets and put them in a
Speaker 1: smart contract. Is if you're holding BTC. You know, some
Speaker 1: institutions have accountants who would say that wrapping in a
Speaker 1: taxable event, so then they have to pay the tax
Speaker 1: on the on their BTC gains, whereas with US, they
Speaker 1: can use native BTC.
Speaker 3: If they don't.
Speaker 1: Want to take the counterparty risk of US of facing
Speaker 1: US directly, they can put the BTC in a qualified
Speaker 1: custody account using using a triparty agreement, so the custodian
Speaker 1: looks after it. If it drops in value, then we
Speaker 1: would have the ability to liquidate it. But it's it's
Speaker 1: set up that really suits more conservative institutions. They can
Speaker 1: use native BTC unlike smart contracts, and then and then
Speaker 1: they can keep it in a custodian instead of having
Speaker 1: to to take the risk of an exploit in the
Speaker 1: smart contracts. And you know, despite how far the space
Speaker 1: has come, we still see exploits happening all the time
Speaker 1: when it comes to smart contracts.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was just about to at that point
Speaker 2: as a follow up, the fact that we still see
Speaker 2: a lot of exploits and things happening. I'm sure it
Speaker 2: puts their mind at ease that Okay, this is not
Speaker 2: wrapped up in a defied protocol. It's kind of pseudo
Speaker 2: DeFi but it's what it qualified custodians that they can
Speaker 2: sleep at night.
Speaker 3: Definitely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a huge selling point for institutions, particularly there
Speaker 1: for their compliance teams.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's really great. So tell us how the partnership
Speaker 2: with Cantor Fitzgerald came about and the big news we
Speaker 2: heard this week of they're launching about two billion dollars
Speaker 2: in bitcoin lending and how Maples plays a part in that.
Speaker 1: We were tremendously excited about that announcement. So it came
Speaker 1: out two days ago and Canter is a very well
Speaker 1: respected name in the traditional finance space, and they have
Speaker 1: announced they're doing a two billion dollar bitcoin backed loan program,
Speaker 1: and Maple, along with falcon X, we're two of the
Speaker 1: first two of the first borrowing partners there. So what
Speaker 1: that means is that we post bitcoin and then we
Speaker 1: borrow a larger amount from them, so I think, I
Speaker 1: think like a wholesale amount, and then we use that
Speaker 1: to grow our lending book. So for us, it gives
Speaker 1: us access to larger amounts of capital, It establishes a
Speaker 1: partnership with a well respected stratify name, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a watershed moment where you'll start to see more
Speaker 1: traditional finance names coming into the space and participating in
Speaker 1: some way. Cantor obviously has very strong links and ties
Speaker 1: to the industry through their relationship with Tether as well
Speaker 1: as you know, as well as the former CEO how
Speaker 1: at LATNX relationship with the administration being very pro crypto.
Speaker 1: But I think, I think what this means is that
Speaker 1: you're going to see a lot more institutions look at
Speaker 1: either fixed income products against bitcoin or other bitcoin structured
Speaker 1: products from here. And also, you know, I expect Canta
Speaker 1: to really ramp up that two billion dollar program.
Speaker 2: So sid, I just I want to make sure I
Speaker 2: wrap my head around what this opens up for Mapel.
Speaker 2: So it gives you more liquidity, like so maybe.
Speaker 1: For us, it's Yeah, for us, it's more liquidity and
Speaker 1: capital to lend out. So how it works is we
Speaker 1: post bitcoin, we receive dollars, and then we're able to
Speaker 1: lend those out to our customers. So for us, it's
Speaker 1: all about growth and securing new financing partners who have
Speaker 1: the ability to scale.
Speaker 3: And I think it really.
Speaker 1: Is a testament to the to the confidence that allocators
Speaker 1: have in the transparency and the liquidity of what we're doing.
Speaker 1: So all our loans go out on chain, so it's
Speaker 1: it's very transparent into how it works. And then the
Speaker 1: fact that Maple's loans are token ives and done using
Speaker 1: stable coins, I think gives them a degree of liquidity
Speaker 1: that's just not available when you look at traditional private
Speaker 1: credit and.
Speaker 2: These loans that are given out, what's usually the terms
Speaker 2: on those are given that bitcoin's price does fluctuate and
Speaker 2: on the macro it's kind of the four year cycles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a good question. Generally the vanilla standard
Speaker 1: loan that we would do is you're looking at seventy
Speaker 1: percent LTV. So if you give me a million dollars
Speaker 1: of BTC, I give you seven hundred thousand dollars loan.
Speaker 1: We normally do it open term with the ability to
Speaker 1: recall within thirty days. You've got very short, short dated
Speaker 1: liquidity and access to the return of capital pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: And then at this stage, obviously the price of bitcoin fluctuates,
Speaker 1: and the and the interest rates against bitcoin also fluctuate.
Speaker 1: I would say roughly, you're seeing kind of market pricing
Speaker 1: in the like nine to ten percent range at the
Speaker 1: moment for corporate borrowers. And how we manage risk given
Speaker 1: your point Tony about the fluctuating price of bitcoin, is
Speaker 1: we have an initial LTVs that's at seventy percent level
Speaker 1: I mentioned, and then we would have an eighty percent
Speaker 1: LTVs which.
Speaker 3: I reach out.
Speaker 1: That's the point at which we reach out and ask
Speaker 1: for either more bitcoin or for the borrower to start
Speaker 1: to pay back some of the loan. And then at
Speaker 1: eighty five percent LTV, that's when we have a stop
Speaker 1: loss level. So at that point we're just looking to
Speaker 1: liquidate the bitcoin. But in our case, we can liquidate
Speaker 1: it back to just the initial LTV, so it's we're
Speaker 1: not fully liquidating the borrower and so it's not a
Speaker 1: terrible experience for them, whereas often in the defile loans
Speaker 1: it's a full liquidation and then there's very heavy penalties
Speaker 1: on the feed associated with the liquidation. So we try
Speaker 1: and do a little bit more of a borrower friendly
Speaker 1: product here, and that's that's again another reason why institutions
Speaker 1: will choose us. But I'm I'm very very confident that
Speaker 1: bitcoin back lending is going to be the next way
Speaker 1: that institutions really participate in the space because it pays
Speaker 1: out three to four percent more than T bills, super
Speaker 1: short data. You can get your money back within a month,
Speaker 1: and then it's overclateralized by an asset that trades over
Speaker 1: fifty billion.
Speaker 3: Dollars a day worldwide, and.
Speaker 1: You can you can, you know, you can exit a
Speaker 1: position at two am on a Sunday if you want
Speaker 1: very different to you know, to to to selling houses
Speaker 1: with real estate, back to mortgages.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. And you know, it seems like the puck
Speaker 2: is heading to a place where Bitcoin becoming this ultimate
Speaker 2: reserve asset. You know, countries is setting up Bitcoin strategic
Speaker 2: reserves Just yesterday Pakistan they announced they are going to
Speaker 2: follow United States and do the same thing. Yeah, ETF,
Speaker 2: you have corporate treasury, right, Michael Saylor's playbook, And it
Speaker 2: seems to your point what we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 2: Folks don't want to sell this asset, but they want
Speaker 2: to hold on to it and then borrow against it
Speaker 2: used as collateral.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's holding it as a reserve asset gives you
Speaker 1: the ability to quickly access cash by using it as collateral.
Speaker 1: I think you'll see a lot more. You'll see a
Speaker 1: number of countries I think, adopted as a strategic reserve,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of just the next evolution in sovereign
Speaker 1: wealth funds in a way, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of countries, most famously Norway, some of the
Speaker 1: golf countries set up sovereign wealth funds to you know,
Speaker 1: to to to invest and preserve wealth for future generations.
Speaker 1: And that's how I see that's how I see bitcoin
Speaker 1: strategic reserves for the United States and for other countries
Speaker 1: following suit. Also, I think I'm very interested in the
Speaker 1: trend among some of these corporate treasure even publicly listed companies,
Speaker 1: in holding bitcoin, and I think it shows that the
Speaker 1: market is clamoring for this exposure, and we also see
Speaker 1: a strategic opportunity for Maple to be a financing partner.
Speaker 1: One of the things that not a lot of people
Speaker 1: remember is that Sailor had a facility with Silvergate Bank
Speaker 1: back in twenty twenty two, prior to the banking collapse
Speaker 1: in early twenty twenty three. But what a facility borrowing
Speaker 1: against your bitcoin or ether or soul allows you to
Speaker 1: do is opportunistically buy the dips in the market. And
Speaker 1: so I think, you know, Maple would love to work
Speaker 1: with some of these treasury companies, and indeed we're starting
Speaker 1: to make outreach to them. But we can be a
Speaker 1: facility that allows them to opportunistically buy dips and then
Speaker 1: anytime they want, they can repay the facility using convertible notes,
Speaker 1: equity issuance pref equity issuance. But it just gives them
Speaker 1: another arrow in their quiverity.
Speaker 2: Use mm hm And do you believe that eventually, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, everything pretty much starts with bitcoin first and uh,
Speaker 2: but then we may see folks go to ethereum and
Speaker 2: then x RP is literally over the past two days,
Speaker 2: you had an etherorem treasury strategy news announced from a
Speaker 2: public company, and yesterday an XRP treasury strategy, So it
Speaker 2: seems like there's a race here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, uh, Bitcoin, e F, x RP, and
Speaker 1: SOUL are kind of you know, they're they're you know,
Speaker 1: they have the highest liquidity in the space, and so
Speaker 1: they're kind of the preferred, uh, starting points for institutions.
Speaker 1: But I do think, uh, I do think that bitcoin
Speaker 1: is kind of the gateway drug. When I talk to
Speaker 1: people at Galaxy, at coin base, some of these uh,
Speaker 1: you know, more institutional shops. Whenever they talk with the
Speaker 1: pension funds, the endowments and and the uh the insurance companies,
Speaker 1: you know, your your big balance sheet investors in tread fy,
Speaker 1: the starting point for all of them is is bitcoin.
Speaker 1: They just want to buy bitcoin. And so how we've
Speaker 1: positioned ourselves is we then offer the two next products
Speaker 1: from there, which are borrow against your bitcoin or lend
Speaker 1: against bitcoin, and the other one being how do you
Speaker 1: get a yield on your bitcoin? So the bitcoin yield
Speaker 1: strategy we run. But I think that's the natural kind
Speaker 1: of gateway drug. That's the next thing they think about.
Speaker 1: But you're absolutely right, Tony. Of course they're going to
Speaker 1: look at at ethereum, and you've already seen that in
Speaker 1: practice with black Rock and Biddle. You know, it's got
Speaker 1: over a billion dollars of tokenized assets and money market
Speaker 1: funds on ethereum. And I think somebody made a point
Speaker 1: the other day, but I think Ethereum has kind of
Speaker 1: evolved into the DeFi debt capital market and in another sense,
Speaker 1: Solana has become kind of the center for a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, tokenized equities and equity capital markets.
Speaker 2: And how do you feel the staking component to ETH, Well, uh,
Speaker 2: when the product eventually gets built around ETH, right, could
Speaker 2: that be a very strong incentive because you're you're already
Speaker 2: getting a natural yield?
Speaker 3: I think, uh.
Speaker 1: I think ETFs have been looking at staking eth for
Speaker 1: a while, and I think actually there's there's a couple
Speaker 1: of ETPs or exchange traded products that are outside of
Speaker 1: the US that have staking built into them. I think
Speaker 1: one in the UK and one and one in Canada.
Speaker 1: Uh So I think, uh, I think once you when
Speaker 1: you have the initial call it spot asset, so whether
Speaker 1: it's BTC or ETH, uh, that's always that's V one
Speaker 1: of the product. And then you get to staking as
Speaker 1: kind of a V two because competition drives this, right,
Speaker 1: you have to you know, if if you've got five
Speaker 1: BTC and eth ETFs, uh, the sixth one is going
Speaker 1: to have to do something different and so it's going
Speaker 1: to have to look at either staking or generating a
Speaker 1: yield on the assets somehow, and the market's going to
Speaker 1: have appetite for that.
Speaker 2: So you know, you're servicing institutional investors primarily, But can
Speaker 2: accredited investors participate in users?
Speaker 3: For sure?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we have so if you look, we
Speaker 1: have kind of three product lines. We've got Maple Insto
Speaker 1: that's where accredited investors would go. We've got Syrup USD,
Speaker 1: which is the more defive friendly option but blocked blocked
Speaker 1: and not available in the US. And then we've got
Speaker 1: the BTC Yield product. So accredited investors can all use
Speaker 1: Maple Insto and that's available in the US and it's
Speaker 1: actually been extremely popular with high net worth accredited investors. Uh.
Speaker 1: They just sign a loan agreement with US and then
Speaker 1: they're able to earn an interest rate on their stable
Speaker 1: coins and they can choose two strategies. We have the
Speaker 1: more conservative one just BTC and eth back lending, and
Speaker 1: then we've got the higher yield strategy which will also
Speaker 1: do lending against soul XRP and other assets. But both
Speaker 1: have both have been immensely pop popular. The BTC back
Speaker 1: to one is kind of paying six to seven at
Speaker 1: the moment, and the high yield one will start paying
Speaker 1: around ten at the moment.
Speaker 2: I need to look into that, said, you and I
Speaker 2: going to have to talk after this interview.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 2: Now in regards to security, right, you mentioned using the
Speaker 2: third party custodian and so forth. Tell us a bit
Speaker 2: more about your security infrastructure and what layers you have
Speaker 2: in place to prevent someone and Mabel from doing something,
Speaker 2: because I know these are questions people are going to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure it's and it's definitely you know, it's definitely
Speaker 1: a good thing to ask. And it's a core part
Speaker 1: of the operational due diligence that you know our partner
Speaker 1: is doing us before you know, before they start participating.
Speaker 1: And so internally, the controls we have against uh you
Speaker 1: know call it employee or insider UH misbehavior policies, so
Speaker 1: same same as you would have in a traditional company
Speaker 1: when you have who has access to the bank accounts
Speaker 1: and how much approval you know, what is required in
Speaker 1: the way of approvals we have. We have multi sig
Speaker 1: wallets in place that all have policies in place, so
Speaker 1: we use we like fire blocks for defy and port
Speaker 1: which is anchorage of product. But we have you know,
Speaker 1: people who can approve or initiate transactions internally, and then
Speaker 1: we have senior people who are required to approve and
Speaker 1: so we have that in place for any movements of funds,
Speaker 1: whether it be funding loans, shifting collateral, and that just
Speaker 1: helps protect our assets.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 1: And then as well, from a cybersecurity perspective, we have
Speaker 1: a bug bounty program. We have constant monitoring of suspicious
Speaker 1: transactions using TRM labs, and then we also have monitoring
Speaker 1: in place around you know, any attempted exploits or malicious
Speaker 1: transactions where people are attempting to access our contracts. So yeah,
Speaker 1: effectively three layers of protection. And as well, I think
Speaker 1: it's worth noting for most people. So we don't keep
Speaker 1: honey pots of funds in smart contracts. We when we
Speaker 1: take in stable coins, we're lending them out to the
Speaker 1: institutional borrowers, so it's not like they're sitting in a stable,
Speaker 1: it's not like they're sitting in a smart contract. And
Speaker 1: then when we take collateral, it's in these custodial accounts
Speaker 1: as well, which because the extra layer of protection so
Speaker 1: very different from the early days when you saw the
Speaker 1: exploits of things like you know, folkrom protocol and some
Speaker 1: of the other early lending markets.
Speaker 2: HM, that definitely makes sense. I'm curious about how Maple's were.
Speaker 2: Which blockchain is Mabel running on. Is it a proprietary
Speaker 2: blockchain or is it a Ethereum layer two? And then
Speaker 2: you have a couple of tokens, Syrup and the MPL
Speaker 2: Maple token. Tell us about how all of that works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, happy, happy to explain how all this fits together.
Speaker 1: So we're primarily on if may neet at the moment.
Speaker 1: We are also going cross chain imminently actually, so we're
Speaker 1: working with chain Link and chain Link and their cross
Speaker 1: chain initiative to have Syrup USDC available and it will
Speaker 1: be the it will actually be the first DeFi asset
Speaker 1: that could be minted in USDC on Solana.
Speaker 3: So we're really excited about that.
Speaker 1: We you know, we are big believers in the Solana ecosystem.
Speaker 1: We've been active there since twenty twenty two, but we're
Speaker 1: trying to come back in a big way and we're
Speaker 1: doing integrations with some of the DeFi ecosystem there, so
Speaker 1: Camino Orca. We want syrup USDC to be available as
Speaker 1: both a collateral asset and as a high yield savings
Speaker 1: account type product there and then we're actually one of
Speaker 1: the big strategic pillars for US this year, will be
Speaker 1: getting syrup USDC across chain in future, so we want
Speaker 1: it available on multiple other chains. We're going to be
Speaker 1: working with chain Link on that, but we want it
Speaker 1: available as a high yield savings product there. We actually
Speaker 1: call it liquid yeld Dollar. Then to your other point
Speaker 1: on the governance token, so we actually have closed out
Speaker 1: support for MPL. We did a six month migration period,
Speaker 1: but now it's just Syrup, so we have one governance
Speaker 1: token for the entire protocol. Everything is united under the
Speaker 1: Syrup token. And how that fits in is you can
Speaker 1: stake it. If you're staking it, you get governance rights
Speaker 1: and so you participate in key decisions and we have
Speaker 1: a rewards program available for staking, so we do buybacks
Speaker 1: where we take twenty percent of the revenues of the protocol.
Speaker 1: We can update that on a quarterly basis through governance voting,
Speaker 1: but that currently gets used to buy back this year
Speaker 1: up token and then that's distributed as rewards for people
Speaker 1: who are staking and participating in governance. So we're one
Speaker 1: of the few protocols that has an active FEA switch
Speaker 1: an active buyback program in place, because we're one of
Speaker 1: the few protocols generating sustainable revenues at the moment. So
Speaker 1: currently the protocol earns around ten mil annually and that's
Speaker 1: growing and it only spends between seven to eight so
Speaker 1: it's actually it's actually now profitable.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. And what's on your roadmap? You know, obviously
Speaker 2: this you have the big announcement with Canter, but anything
Speaker 2: that we can potentially expect laters here.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the big thing to keep an eye
Speaker 1: out for this year. I'll just go through in order
Speaker 1: of kind of the product, so Maple and so we're
Speaker 1: going to be doing more of these traditional finance partnerships
Speaker 1: and really rolling out the idea of fixed income coming
Speaker 1: from bitcoin back lending to you know, to a trad
Speaker 1: fire audience.
Speaker 3: So expect more more.
Speaker 1: Facility partnerships and funding partnerships then Syrup USD. Syrup USD,
Speaker 1: the focus is really going to be on cross chain
Speaker 1: expansion and also centralized exchange partnerships. So we've done integrations
Speaker 1: with the binance wallet, with OKX, with bitget.
Speaker 3: We want to.
Speaker 1: See more of those partnerships. We think a lot of
Speaker 1: users are on those exchanges. They have great user experiences,
Speaker 1: they have a very large customer bases, and we think
Speaker 1: it's an interesting product for them to offer in the
Speaker 1: yield space. And then on the BTC yield product, the
Speaker 1: most exciting thing we've got coming will be lst BTC.
Speaker 3: So think about this.
Speaker 1: It's almost like the it's almost like STEF, but for
Speaker 1: BTC it'll be yield bearing liquid available in DeFi. You'll
Speaker 1: be able to purchase it on secondary markets or you
Speaker 1: will be able to use it as collateral for borrowing.
Speaker 1: So we expect a big uptake there.
Speaker 2: That's great. Now, I know we're running up on time,
Speaker 2: so I want to get your take on your outlook
Speaker 2: for the crypto market. Obviously, we got legislation work being
Speaker 2: worked on in Congress and to anticipate those getting passed,
Speaker 2: and uh, you know what what could that do for
Speaker 2: the crypto industry. Do you see a boom and much
Speaker 2: and things.
Speaker 3: Like that, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: I think Look, it's uh, the legislative space moves around
Speaker 1: so much day to day that it's hard to give
Speaker 1: concrete predictions. I think, however, that stable coin Bill gets
Speaker 1: through the Senate this year. I think Market Structure Bill
Speaker 1: is kind of the for many of us in the
Speaker 1: in the space, that's the bigger that's the the you know,
Speaker 1: that's the bigger ticket item, and that has downstream impacts
Speaker 1: on all of us. So what is a security? What
Speaker 1: is not a security? How do you know, how do
Speaker 1: you raise money through tokens? Uh? You know, what kind
Speaker 1: of disclosures do you need to provide? Uh, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of there's a lot of meat on
Speaker 1: the boat and in the in the market structure build.
Speaker 1: But I think that'll probably come next year. We've seen
Speaker 1: drafts of it. I know a lot of people are
Speaker 1: kind of confident on it, but I just you know,
Speaker 1: you never you never want to bet on Congress being
Speaker 1: too fast, and it's it's always safe for them to
Speaker 1: kind of take their time. But I think either way,
Speaker 1: what what this legislation means that gives clarity to institutions
Speaker 1: coming into the space. It gives clarity to builders like
Speaker 1: myself who want to create products that ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: enhance users' lives, whether by making it cheaper, more transparent,
Speaker 1: more accessible. This is ultimately what we want to build,
Speaker 1: and we just want a chance to compete with some
Speaker 1: of the some of the trad FI institutions who have
Speaker 1: had regulatory capture for a very long time, and competition
Speaker 1: that was prevented by the posture of the last administration.
Speaker 1: So I'm actually I'm quietly, you know, quietly, I have
Speaker 1: my fingers crossed for a ball market for the rest
Speaker 1: of the year. I think, you know, naturally, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of an optimist by disposition, but I do think there's
Speaker 1: a number of catalysts that are kind of helping things.
Speaker 1: And I think if we get some of these trade
Speaker 1: deals in place, if we get inflation under control, then
Speaker 1: you could potentially see a right cut this year that
Speaker 1: I think kind of catalyzes more of a bull market
Speaker 1: for the space. But either way, I think people are
Speaker 1: returning to the US to build. I meete a lot
Speaker 1: of founders who are considering exiting Europe or if they
Speaker 1: had gone offshore earlier, are looking at returning to the
Speaker 1: US to build. So I think it's very very strong
Speaker 1: for the space.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's great to hear. And it's just the
Speaker 2: air has changed. People are more optimistic about building here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: complete one eighty all right, I got some wrap up
Speaker 2: questions here for you. At first, if you could create
Speaker 2: your own metaverse, what would the theme be?
Speaker 1: Good question? I kind of toss up between two. I
Speaker 1: kind of like, I'm a fan of the of the
Speaker 1: you know, the the classical times, so maybe like a
Speaker 1: Roman Empire themed one. I also like kind of the
Speaker 1: Age of Discovery as well. I've been I've been reading
Speaker 1: a lot about Magellan and some of the early you know,
Speaker 1: early explorers of the New World, So I think one
Speaker 1: of those a Roman Empire or Age of Discovery.
Speaker 2: Awesome rapid fire questions. Favorite food.
Speaker 3: My favorite food is actually it's overnight oats.
Speaker 1: I kind of make this I make I make basically
Speaker 1: the same thing every day, but it's like it's protein,
Speaker 1: you know, It's like protein powdered peanut butter and overnight
Speaker 1: oats with banana, and it's just like kind of how
Speaker 1: I start every day.
Speaker 2: Favorite musician or band.
Speaker 1: I like the nineties alternative stuff. I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of the Verve and the Goo Goo dolls. They usually
Speaker 1: make it make it onto my rotations.
Speaker 2: You won't believe this. Johnny Resnik lives in the town
Speaker 2: next to me. I bump into him all wit, no shit.
Speaker 2: And I'm a big fan of Google.
Speaker 3: I love it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me and my wife are always kind of belting
Speaker 1: it out on the on the on.
Speaker 3: The car rights. Yeah. For sure. Favorite movie, favorite one,
Speaker 3: I have a couple.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of my top three, but let's
Speaker 1: say my favorite one is Whiplash. I was actually just
Speaker 1: having a conversation about this the other day. And another
Speaker 1: one I really like is Sakaria. But I think I
Speaker 1: think Whiplash just kind of like the grind that the
Speaker 1: guy goes through is reflective of what you do as
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2: Oh, for sure. Favorite book.
Speaker 1: Favorite book at the moment is probably thirty eight Letters
Speaker 1: by John D. Rockefeller to his son. So it's just
Speaker 1: it's literally just a bunch of letters that he wrote
Speaker 1: wrote to his son, as is outlined in the title,
Speaker 1: but it gives it gives a hint of his thinking,
Speaker 1: like how he thinks about competition, strategy, you know, mission vision,
Speaker 1: all that. But you know, in my mind he's the
Speaker 1: most successful entrepreneur of all times. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot to learn from him. And then the other thing
Speaker 1: is I'm generally a fan of Napoleon biographies.
Speaker 2: I'll have to check out the book John D. Rockfeller,
Speaker 2: the letters you wrote that sounds fascinating. And when you're
Speaker 2: not working at Maple, what are you doing for fun?
Speaker 1: I used to play a lot of tennis growing up,
Speaker 1: and since I'm in Miami now, I uh, there's actually
Speaker 1: a really good Padel community. So for those who don't
Speaker 1: know Padel, it's kind of like a it's like a
Speaker 1: hybrid between tennis, squat tennis, and squash, but you can
Speaker 1: hit you know, you can hit the ball off the
Speaker 1: back wall, and there's a there's a big community of
Speaker 1: people in in like the crypto and venture space to play.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like it's nice exercise, gets you outdoors,
Speaker 1: and it's also good for networking as well. I kind
Speaker 1: of don't have the time or the patients to get
Speaker 1: good at golf, so so Padel is the next best option.
Speaker 2: Good stuff said, really great to have you and I'm
Speaker 2: definitely gonna have to have you back on We got
Speaker 2: to do around too, as you guys you know, on
Speaker 2: Unleash and open up new great things on Maple. But
Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 3: No, no, thanks for having me. Tony really enjoyed it.