Update from Maple’s CEO Sidney Powell

Sidney Powell

CEO and Co-Founder

Maple moving forward

To our lenders, borrowers, partners, token holders, and team,

Over the past week, two people who have been valuable parts of Maple shared that they are leaving. My co-founder Joe Flanagan and I started this company together in 2019. Over time, we came to see Maple’s path forward differently, and Joe chose to step away. Ryan, our COO, has also decided to leave Maple. I respect both decisions, and I’m grateful for all they contributed. Joe is supporting the handover until the end of 2026.

Two departures in a short time naturally raise questions, and I want to address them. These departures relate to differing views on Maple’s path forward, not to the loan book or the health of the business. Joe wrote in his letter that Maple “has the potential to play a much larger role in this industry.” I feel the same, and I’m proud to continue leading the team. This article sets out how I believe we get there.

Where onchain finance is going

When Joe and I started Maple, the idea was simple: Credit should work onchain, with the same underwriting discipline institutions use everywhere else. That conviction hasn’t changed.

Most credit today still runs on slow, private processes. Deals take weeks, and lenders often can’t see much of what’s happening to their money. Onchain, a loan can be funded in minutes, and anyone can check the positions behind it. We built Maple for that shift, and I think we’re still early.

Traditional finance, fintech, and onchain finance are converging into one market. The largest institutions in finance are now building onchain, arriving on the home field Maple has been building since 2019. Within the next decade, I believe most institutional credit will be originated, managed, or settled onchain. That won’t happen because the technology is novel. It will happen because it is better: Faster to fund, cheaper to run, and open to scrutiny in a way traditional credit has never been.

The firms that have already proven they can underwrite onchain, through full cycles, will define that market. Maple was built as the native onchain incumbent, now with a track record that can’t be replicated quickly. We intend to be the one others measure themselves against.

The direction Maple is taking

I believe that DeFi is evolving and now is the time to take the next step. DeFi itself remains central to Maple. Our DeFi partnerships are some of our largest channels, and we will keep building there. But the future of onchain finance is where DeFi converges with traditional finance and with the fintechs and neobanks that serve millions of people. That is where the capital is that will take onchain finance from billions to hundreds of billions. Across crypto lending, tokenized credit, and stablecoin yield, we estimate the addressable market at around $1T, and only a small fraction of it is onchain today.

That capital comes with requirements. The institutions that hold it need onchain firms to meet the rigorous and robust enterprise standards expected of traditional market firms, and they won’t move without them. Any onchain finance business that wants to reach institutional scale will have to meet those requirements, and build products, processes, and controls for a new kind of client.

How far and how fast Maple should go in that direction has been one of the central questions in our leadership discussions. I believe staying focused on DeFi as it was won’t get onchain finance to hundreds of billions, and it won’t capture what Maple was built to do. Joe and Ryan have each explained their decisions in their own words. Those views are theirs, and I won’t speak for them. What I can do is set out the direction I am taking Maple, so you can judge it for yourself. The strategy is not new. It is the one Maple has been pursuing, and I intend to take it further.

I believe Maple’s opportunity is far larger than anything we could realize today. The market is moving toward exactly what we have spent seven years building, and the coming years are when that work compounds. We choose to keep building.

Our bets

Maple is in a great position. That isn’t the same as being as ambitious as we can be. There is more we can do, and we intend to do it. Over the next year, we are making five bets:

Onchain credit becomes how institutions borrow. Through Maple Credit, we will scale facilities for institutional borrowers who need capital with speed and certainty.
Yield with a source becomes the standard allocator's demand. Through Maple Earn, we will open Maple underwriting strategies to more allocators who want to understand where their return comes from.
Maple powers the yield inside the products people already use. Through Maple Embed, we will expand Maple to more fintechs, exchanges, and platforms, so their users can earn from real credit.
Vaults become how onchain asset managers reach capital. Maple’s own vaults are composable across DeFi, so our strategies can reach capital wherever it is allocated onchain.
Tokenized collateral takes onchain lending from tens of billions to hundreds of billions. As equities, funds, and other real-world assets come onchain, lenders need to monitor, manage, and liquidate that collateral with confidence. Maple is building the technology and expertise to do it, and that is a core advantage.

DeFi is where we came from, and we will keep building there as it converges with the wider financial system. The last three years were Maple’s fastest, and I believe the next three can be bigger. We will work to grow as fast as our underwriting allows.

Maple today

This has been a hard year for DeFi, but Maple revenue is up 82% year to date (as of end of Q3) compared with 2025. Since 2019, Maple has originated more than $20B in loans across 400+ facilities, and assets under management (AUM) have grown 50x in three years, peaking at $4.9B. We have distributed more than $150M in yield to lenders, generated primarily from the interest borrowers repay. Today, more than 150 institutional lenders work with Maple, and 50+ partners build on Maple Embed.

Our credit team continues to underwrite and monitor facilities as before, and day-to-day operations continue as normal. Withdrawal requests are being processed through each pool’s standard withdrawal process, as designed. Our revenue, our balance sheet, and each product’s assets and reserves are published for anyone to check on Maple Transparency.

The team leading the next phase

None of this happens without the people behind it. Like any company that has been building for seven years, our team has grown and changed along the way. Many of those who joined Maple in its early days are still here, and I’m proud of that. The team that kept lending through 2022, built our original products, built Maple Transparency, and took Maple to highs of $4.9B in AUM is the team leading the next phase. Maple has a leadership team focused on the work ahead, and specialists across every area of the business, from credit and risk to product, engineering, and partnerships. They are the reason I’m confident in what comes next. I look forward to introducing more of the existing Maple leadership team to you in the coming months.

Scaling Maple will take more than a bigger book. It will take the same habits that built it, and the values this team holds. We will stay focused on the work that moves Maple forward.

Those values are our foundation. The ground under DeFi, traditional finance, and fintech is shifting, both in how capital moves and in how it is monitored. As the market matures, more institutions will come onchain, and they will expect the standards Maple already holds itself to. We intend to grow with that change by investing in our team, holding ourselves to the highest expectations of our institutional partners.

Thank you

To our lenders, borrowers, partners, and token holders: Thank you. Your capital and partnership built Maple, and we are looking forward to scaling with you to the next stage.

I started Maple because I believed finance could work better: More open, more efficient, and fairer to the people who provide the capital and the businesses that need it. Seven years in, I believe it more than ever, and I’m committed to Maple for the long term. For seven years, our job has been to prove that onchain credit works through every kind of market. We’ve done that. Now the work is scaling it.

As I often say to the team, I don’t have another billion-dollar idea. This is it. What comes next is the most ambitious work Maple has ever taken on, and there is nothing I’d rather be doing.

Too much capital still sits dormant, held back by opacity, outdated rails, and gatekept access. We believe billions of dollars of capital will move onchain over the coming years, and Maple intends to earn a meaningful share of it. We have spent seven years building this model through full market cycles. Now we scale it.

If you would like to talk any of this through, your Maple contact can arrange a call with me. Thank you for supporting Maple.

Sidney Powell, CEO and Co-Founder, Maple

Onchain Capital. Activated.

This post sets out Sidney Powell’s current views and plans for Maple. It contains forward-looking statements, which are not guarantees and may change. Nothing in it is an offer or investment advice.

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