Pendle announces plans to target Solana, Hyperliquid and Ton

The yield-trading protocol is also moving to offer KYC’d yields to TradFi

article-image

Pendle and Adobe stock modified by Blockworks

share


This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.


Decentralized finance today is still largely an ouroboros, as Vitalik once pointed out.

Protocol revenues and fees are real, and they prove the tech works. That is important! But these revenue flows are still largely the downstream result of speculative capital passing between traders in a circular, self-consuming cycle.

Protocols like Pendle observed these state of affairs, declined to pass judgment, then simply built the best possible product to capitalize on this ouroboros-like economy.

Want a fixed yield? Buy Pendle Principal Tokens (PT). Prefer to farm points with expectation of big airdrops? Buy Yield Tokens (YT). It’s as simple as that.

What Pendle has created is not new. It’s the TradFi-equivalent of zero-coupon bonds, interest rate swaps or forward rate agreements.

But Pendle has emulated these traditionally structured products extremely well in DeFi. In 2024, Pendle grew its TVL levels to $4.4 billion and daily average trading volumes to $96 million — a 20x and 100x increase, respectively.

Pendle is so successful that it has in effect become a de facto token launchpad akin to an ICO, but better. 

For instance, in the weeks leading up to Berachain’s genesis airdrop, Berachain Pendle markets accumulated more than a billion in TVL from users wanting to yield trade on Berachain assets and game airdrops.

Pendle’s 2025 outlook

Pendle co-founder TN Lee announced last week the protocol’s big plans for 2025. 

There are a host of minor piecemeal upgrades coming, like dynamic fees for yield trading and improvements to the vePENDLE token bribe system.

But the most notable upgrade looks to Pendle’s plans to target the most lucrative yield source in crypto: perps funding rates. 

As part of this “Boros” (a play on ouroboros?) initiative, Pendle will allow traders to swap to yield trade perpetual funding rates.

Source: Pendle

This would enable protocols like Ethena to lock in predictable funding yields, which would entail fixed APYs for sUSDe holders. 

In hyper-volatile perps markets like memecoins, long traders will also be able to hedge against their perps positions by locking into a predictable, fixed funding rate.

Pendle is also planning an expansion to non-EVM chains Solana, Hyperliquid and Ton. Solana already has a burgeoning yield-trading market, though it’s still small relative to Pendle.

Finally, Pendle is coming for TradFi. The pitch is straightforward: “Why stick with 8% yields on a 5-year corporate bond when you can enjoy a 17% WBTC PT yield?”

This is part of the team’s plans to launch a KYC’d product for regulated entities as well as Islamic funds to access crypto yields.

Pendle’s pendulum is swinging, and looks to swing even harder in the coming year. With its planned expansions to target non-EVM chains and TradFi liquidity, these moves radically expand Pendle’s target addressable market beyond spot yield markets on Ethereum and the broader crypto sector itself.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates (8).png

Research

Meta-aggregators like Titan and Kamino Swap improve price execution for users, making the Solana swapping landscape more competitive. Jupiter has incorporated meta-aggregation features into its latest routing engine to keep users on its front end (own the user, own the flow). At large, teams are treating swaps as a commoditized complement, offering incredibly cheap or free swaps to own the end-user and increase demand for high-margin product offerings (multi-product DeFi). On another note, the divergence in the concentration of aggregator volume between DEXs suggests increased specialization at the DEX layer by asset type.

article-image

Investors moved to safe assets like the US dollar and gold, but bonds faltered

article-image

The Amex offers up to 4% bitcoin back, but the deal is a bit ironic considering crypto’s goals

article-image

Short answer: Subnets are now cheaper to bootstrap than a Celestia rollup

article-image

Few things are more cypherpunk than keeping keys in your brain wallet

article-image

Many community banks and credit unions feel like they missed the fintech craze — and they don’t want to miss stablecoins

article-image

BlackRock COO Rob Goldstein noted that the firm had been looking into crypto since 2017