Maple Finance Enables Direct Lending to Compensate for BlockFi, Celsius Shortfall

Maple Finance Initiates Direct Lending Program

Maple Finance, a web3 lending platform, has declared the initiation of a direct lending program, as reported in a fact sheet from the platform’s development team on June 28. The program is created to substitute for the services that were formerly provided by Celsius, BlockFi, and other lenders that have now gone bankrupt.

The company announced that the first lending pool will be available in July.

Maple Finance is a blockchain-based institutional capital marketplace employed by Web3 businesses to secure loans for product launches or expansions. In the past, Maple called on “pool delegates,” which are credit professionals, to fund these loans. As an example, in February 2022, Celsius utilized Maple to create a Wrapped Ether (WETH) lending pool.

In the bear market of mid-to-late 2022, some of the biggest Web3 lenders experienced failure. Celsius ceased operations in July, BlockFi succumbed in November, and Genesis declared bankruptcy in January.

Maple Direct Program to Provide Loans to Web3 Technology Companies

In its June 28 announcement, the Maple team declared that it will now assume the role of a lender in certain circumstances. Applying its own credit evaluation proficiency, it will supply funds from institutional investors to creditworthy borrowers. This implies that if a possible borrower is unable to get loans from any of the other providers, they may be able to acquire them from Maple by means of its Maple Direct program.

Celsius is aiming to exchange alternative coins for Bitcoin and Ether as part of its restructuring plan.

The Maple team has stated that this new program is essential due to the fact that many of the major Web3 lenders have left the market and traditional lenders, such as banks, lack the specialized knowledge to provide the necessary support to Web3 technology companies.

The team declared that a direct lending pool will be introduced in July, concentrating on providing loans to “infrastructure, asset managers, and liquidity providers”. They have asked capital allocators to take advantage of the program to get a return on their investments, noting that it is suitable for “Crypto Funds, DAOs, VCs, HNWI, Yield Aggregators, and Family Offices”.

The announcement indicated that Maple would be expanding its current services, suggesting that Maple Direct will not be a substitute for the platform which currently showcases various lenders.

The lenders at Maple Finance felt the repercussions of the FTX and Alameda Research bankruptcies in November. As a result, borrower Aurus Global missed one of its payments, and Maple also severed its relationship with Orthogonal Trading due to what it perceived as misrepresentations. Nevertheless, the platform quickly rebounded, releasing version 2.0 of its software in December.