{"id":32562,"date":"2025-06-18T20:31:46","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T20:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=32562"},"modified":"2025-06-18T20:31:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T20:31:46","slug":"crypto-lenders-hold-nearly-60b-of-assets-as-new-wave-of-defi-adoption-sweeps-in-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=32562","title":{"rendered":"Crypto Lenders Hold Nearly $60B of Assets as New Wave of DeFi Adoption Sweeps In: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

There’s a quiet transformation underway in decentralized finance (DeFi).<\/p>\n

While DeFi’s previous bull market was driven by eye-watering\u2014and dubious\u2014yields and speculative frenzy, the current growth has been powered by the sector becoming a backend financial layer for user-facing apps and increasing institutional participation, according to a Wednesday report<\/a> by analytics firm Artemis and on-chain yield platform Vaults.fyi.<\/p>\n

The total value locked (TVL) on top DeFi lending protocols\u2014including Aave, Euler, Spark and Morpho\u2014has surged past $50 billion and approaching $60 billion, growing 60% over the past year, the report showed. This growth has been driven by rapid institutionalization and increasingly sophisticated risk management tools.<\/p>\n

“These are not merely yield platforms; they are evolving into modular financial networks undergoing rapid institutionalization,” the authors said.<\/p>\n

\"Lending<\/p>\n

The ‘DeFi mullet’<\/h3>\n

One of the key trend recently the report highlighted is user-facing applications quietly embedding DeFi infrastructure in the backend to offer yield or loans. These features are abstracted away from users creating a more seamless experience, a trend often called the “DeFi mullet:” fintech front-end, DeFi backend, the report said.<\/p>\n

Coinbase users, for instance, can borrow against their bitcoin BTC holdings powered by DeFi lender Morpho\u2019s backend infrastructure. More than $300 million in loans have already originated via this integration as of this month, the report pointed out.<\/p>\n

Bitget Wallet\u2019s integration with lending protocol Aave offers a 5% yield on USDC and USDT holdings across chains without leaving the crypto wallet app. PayPal is also doing something similar with its PYUSD stablecoin, offering yields near 3.7% to PayPal and Venmo wallet users, albeit without the DeFi element.<\/p>\n

The report said crypto-friendly fintech firms with large user bases, such as Robinhood or Revolut, may also adopt this strategy and offer services like stablecoin credit lines and asset-backed loans through DeFi markets, creating new fee-based revenue streams.<\/p>\n

Tokenized RWAs in DeFi<\/h3>\n

Increasingly, DeFi protocols are introducing use cases for tokenized versions of traditional instruments such as U.S. Treasuries and credit funds, also known as real-world assets (RWA).<\/p>\n

These tokenized assets can serve as collateral, earn yield directly or be bundled into more complex strategies.<\/p>\n

Read more: Tokenized Apollo Credit Fund Makes DeFi Debut With Levered-Yield Strategy by Securitize, Gauntlet<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tokenization of investment strategies is also becoming popular. Pendle, a protocol that lets users split yield streams from principal, now manages over $4 billion in total value locked, much of it in tokenized stablecoin yield products.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Ethena\u2019s sUSDe and similar yield-bearing tokens have introduced products that deliver returns above 8% through strategies like cash-and-carry trades, all while abstracting away the operational burden for the end user.<\/p>\n

Rise of on-chain asset managers<\/h3>\n

A less visible but critical trend highlighted in the report is the rise of crypto-native asset managers. Firms like Gauntlet, Re7 and Steakhouse Financial allocate capital across DeFi ecosystems using professionally managed strategies, resembling the role of traditional asset managers.<\/p>\n

These players are deeply embedded in DeFi protocol governance, fine-tune risk parameters and deploy capital across a range of structured yield products, tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) and modular lending markets.<\/p>\n

The report noted that the sector\u2019s capital under management has grown fourfold since January\u2014from $1 billion to over $4 billion.<\/p>\n

Read more: Crypto for Advisors: DeFi Yields, the Revival<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There’s a quiet transformation underway in decentralized finance (DeFi). While DeFi’s previous bull market was driven by eye-watering\u2014and dubious\u2014yields and speculative frenzy, the current growth has been powered by the sector becoming a backend financial layer for user-facing apps and increasing institutional participation, according to a Wednesday report by analytics firm Artemis and on-chain yield […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-32562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}