Crypto Lender Maple Finance Opens U.S. Treasury Bill Pool for Cash Management

Blockchain-based lending protocol Maple Finance has started onboarding investors to its new cash management pool that invests in one-month U.S. Treasury bills (T-bill), the protocol announced in a blog post Wednesday.

The facility offers investors the one-month T-bill yield less the 0.5% management fee on stablecoin deposits, the protocol said. Currently, the one-month T-bill rate is at around 3.7%, meaning that the investment would offer a 3.2% annual yield.

Maple’s new offering comes as crypto investors have become increasingly keen to earn yields by investing in traditional financial (TradFi) assets. Stablecoins generally do not offer users yield, while crypto lending may come with outsized risks, as last year’s defaults and insolvencies among digital asset firms proved.

Meanwhile, yields in traditional markets have risen after central banks globally hiked interest rates to combat inflation. Multiple blockchain protocols have started to offer tokenized versions of real-world assets (RWA) such as government bonds, making RWAs one of the hottest trends in crypto this year.

The pool is structured as a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that collects investor’s stablecoins and lends it to crypto hedge fund Room40 Capital, the sole borrower of the pool, to invest in T-bills, the post explained.

The pool allows accredited investors, crypto firms and decentralized autonomous organizations’ (DAO) treasuries to earn yield on their idle stablecoins with low risk, as short-term U.S. Treasurys are considered among the safest investments.

Maple and Room40 does not require any lockup period for deposits before withdrawal, making the pool ideal for managing cash held in stablecoins, the protocol said.

Notably, only entities and individuals based outside of the U.S. can access the pool after completing a three-step know-your-customer (KYC) check.

Last week, the protocol’s native token MPL rallied as Maple CEO Sidney Powell said in a community call that a new Treasury bill pool will start soon, CoinDesk reported.