Largest crypto lending protocol Aave to integrate Maple’s yield-bearing assets

The largest decentralized lending protocol, Aave, is onboarding a new class of collateral via a strategic partnership with onchain asset manager Maple.

Maple’s yield-bearing, institutional-grade assets “are designed to perform through market cycles and will become part of the backbone of Aave’s variable lending model, stabilizing borrow demand, improving capital efficiency, and strengthening liquidity across the protocol,” the projects wrote in a statement on Tuesday. 

Aave will initially deploy Maple’s syrupUSDT token on its Plasma instance, with additional assets to be added over time, including on the core Aave market, according to the release. “Through this collaboration, Aave unlocks access to Maple’s network of allocators and borrowers, representing billions in deployable capital seeking stable, scalable returns,” the teams wrote.

Aave is by far the largest blockchain-based lending protocol with approximately 1,000 unique daily borrowers and about $25 billion in outstanding loans on Ethereum, according to The Block’s data. The protocol accounts for 82% of all outstanding debt on the network.

“This partnership brings together Maple’s high-quality institutional assets with Aave’s deep liquidity and unmatched scale,” Aave founder Stani Kulechov said. “Institutions gain greater utility and deeper liquidity, enabling them to better manage capital.”

Earlier this year, Maple partnered with the largest Ethereum-based liquid staking protocol, Lido Finance, to launch stablecoin credit lines backed by staked ETH.