Maple Finance (MPL)

From CoinDesk (18-12-2020):

"[A] platform for institutional lending at extremely competitive collateralization terms and fixed rates that won’t change for borrowers in good standing."

Basics

• Started in / Announced on: 2019
• Mainnet release: scheduled for 4-2021, got released on 15-5-2021.
• Based in: Australia (18-12-2020).
• From Bankless (9-9-2022):

"Maple is an under-collateralized lending platform. Maple enables institutions, such as market makers or VCs, to take out under-collateralized loans via isolated lending pools. While some pools on the platform are permissioned, there are several Maple pools which currently accept public deposits."

Audits & Exploits

• The Maple Finance team has hosted a competition on Code Arena with a cash reward of up to 100k. It is however no longer active (29-9-2021).
• Again scored 92% (10-3-2023) on DeFi Safety:

"Maple V2’s improved Dapp comes in at an syrupy smooth 92% that we expect will improve over time. This is a very strong protocol with a professional active team behind it. Maple V1 had a 91%, so this team has roots. They were near perfect in many areas; smart contract and team, security and oracles were all perfect. Admin controls was as close to perfect as upgradeable contracts can get.  As Oasis just taught us upgradeability is a bug in a sense (though we understand).

Their software documentation is clear and complete. The docs is a bit disconnected from the code which hurt their traceability score. Good software architecture diagrams though.

Testing was the only weak section with 70%. While they have a very complete test suite, there was no coverage, test report or testnet. Maple intends to fix all of these. But rather than delay publishing, we will improve the score once they are available."

• Scored 92% (29-9-2021):

"Three audits were conducted on Maple, two of which were before the deployment of V1."

Governance

Admin Keys

• From DeFi Safety (29-9-2021):

"There is a security section in the wiki of the Maple Finance GitHub repository, but it takes a bit of looking. All of the Maple Finance v1 contracts are immutable as described in the security section of their GitHub wiki. This is backed up by the immutable functions in their source code, as well as the use of the Constructor functions. Pause controls are mentioned extensively in the Maple docs. A "fire drill" test of the Maple Pause Control will take place with DeFiSafety in the near future."

Treasury

• From Our Network (3-6-2022):

"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."

Token

Launch

• From EthHub (20-4-2021):

"Maple will be distributing its governance token MPL through a Balancer Labs Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool on April 28, 2021."

Token allocation

• From CoinDesk (18-12-2020):

"The total supply of MPL tokens will be fixed at 10 million, with approximately 30% going to liquidity mining."

Utility

• Has a governance token.
• From their introduction (10-2-2021):

"Holders of the Maple Token (MPL) participate in the following ways:

1. Passive MPL Holders earn a portion of establishment fees
2. Savvy MPL Holders can earn additional yield by selecting Liquidity Pools to stake. Staking provides a reserve covering loan defaults in return for a share of the ongoing fees
3. As Maple moves towards full decentralization, MPL Holders will be able to submit proposals and vote on changes such as adding Pool Delegates and adjusting fees and staking parameters"

Technology

• Whitepaper can be found here.
• Code can be viewed here. From DeFi Safety (29-9-2021):

"At 768 commits and 19 branches, Maple Finance's development history is Shakespearean in quality and richness."

• Built on: Ethereum and Solana (6-2022).

How it works

• From CoinDesk (18-12-2020):

"On Maple, a good firm would pay one rate for the life of the loan, could collateralize with as little as 40% of the loan’s value and the initial collateral deposit would not need to be revisited.

“With ours, it’s a set-it-and-forget-it solution,” Joe Flanagan, co-founder, said. “As long as you remain a paying borrower and meeting your obligations there will be no further calls on your collateral.” Maple is able to offer better terms based on the reputation of borrowers. It will make offers only to institutional customers. That said, Flannagan noted, as this market matures and evolves, Maple would definitely be interested in serving crypto-native organizations, such as decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) that don’t have traditional legal structures. That “expands the addressable market for Maple,” he said.

Maple will be organized by pools, with each pool managed by a “Pool Delegate” who will make decisions about loans in that pool. Pools will specialize in certain areas where the delegate has expertise, such as a region of the world, a category of borrower or a risk profile.

Its first pool will be small, to demonstrate the model. It will have between $10 million and $15 million in funds available for lending, with loans in the $1 million to 2 million range. Maple will initially aim for a pool with a diverse array of borrowers, but all well-established and carefully selected.

One or two pools will be co-managed by Maple Finance and its first Pool Delegate, Orthogonal Trading, a crypto firm, also out of Australia, starting in the first quarter of 2021."

Liquidity Mining

• From CoinDesk (18-12-2020):

"Once the first pool opens, it will be open to participation from across Ethereum up to the maximum amount that a pool ultimately sets. That capital will then be deployed to make the loans. “We assume it will be a combination of both individuals and degens and institutions and corporates,” Flanagan said.

Additionally, those liquidity providers will earn MPL tokens under a liquidity mining scheme whose precise terms have not yet been worked out. The total supply of MPL tokens will be fixed at 10 million, with approximately 30% going to liquidity mining."

Oracle Method

• Uses Chainlink, among others (6-12-2021).

Compliance

• Accredited U.S. investors can take part of their U.S. Treasury Bill pool (9-8-2023).
• From CoinDesk (18-12-2020):

"“Our intent is not for the token to be considered a security,” Powell said, noting Maple is taking advice on legal matters. There are no plans currently to shut out U.S. residents from holding the MPL token."

Their Other Projects

Maple Direct

• Lending arm of Maple Finance will launch in 7-2023.

Roadmap

• Can be found [Insert link here].

Usage

• On Sep. 9 2022, Wintermute, a crypto market making company, took out an uncollateralized 40M USDC loan.
• Maple has originated $1.6B in loans (9-9-2022).
• From Our Network (3-6-2022):

"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."

Pros and Cons

Cons

• Had investment from Alameda Research/FTX. This could mean fall-out risk.

Team, Funding, Partners

Team

• Full team can be found here.
• Sidney Powell; CEO and co-founder
• Joe Flanagan; co-founder

Funding

• From Our Network (3-6-2022):

"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."

• From CoinDesk (18-3-2021):

""Closed a $1.4 million funding round led by Framework Ventures and Polychain Capital."

• From Paradigm (12-2020):

"Maple Finance raised a $1.3 million seed round for its MPL governance token from Framework Ventures, Alameda Research, Aave founder Stani Kulechov, Synthetix founder Kain Warwick, FBG, The LAO and others."

Partners

• Integrated with MakerDAO (12-4-2022).

(:

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