Solana lender Solend's token and deposits jump as founder trashes rival MarginFi

DeFi • April 11, 2024, 3:37PM EDT

Published 1 minute earlier on

Quick Take

Solend’s token rose by as much as 44% and inflows hit their highest daily level since 2022.
Founder of the Solana-based DeFi protocol took to X to criticize MarginFi publicly.

Solend SLND +20.62% 's pseudonymous founder 0xRooter took to X to show how deposits had increased during the last 24 hours on the heels of criticizing rival MarginFi, which had its creator announce his departure yesterday.

Simultaneously, Solend's token rose by as much as 44% on Thursday before declining slightly to $1.57 as of 2:45 p.m. ET. according to The Block's price page.

"Saw a big surge in activity on solend yesterday," 0xRooter posted. Deposits on the DeFi protocol for lending and borrowing on the Solana blockchain rose to $18.6 million on Thursday, the highest daily inflow since 2022, according to DefiLlama.

In the past 24 hours, in what appears to be framed as a retaliation, 0xRooter has made some disparaging comments regarding MarginFi as the Solana-based DeFi protocol was shaken by the departure of its founder amid internal disagreements.

"Last July, MarginFi attempted to blackball Solend with peers, which we found out through backchannels. They spread falsehoods," 0xRooter said on Wednesday. "MarginFi constantly bad-mouthed and farmed engagement with threads criticizing Solend."

According to DefiLlama, MarginFi has seen net outflows worth $194 million amid creator Edgar Pavlovsky’s resignation. The DeFi protocol's total value locked also dropped to $479.8 million, compared to $687.4 million on Tuesday and $811.1 million on April 1.

Pavlovsky’s publicly resigned hours after Solana liquid staking protocol SolBlaze posted accusations, claiming MarginFi had acted in bad faith by not distributing tokens allocated to users per SolBlaze’s depositor reward guidelines.

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

About Author

RT Watson is a senior reporter at The Block who covers a wide array of topics including U.S.-based companies, blockchain gaming and NFTs. Formerly covered entertainment at The Wall Street Journal, where he wrote about Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. and the creator economy while focusing primarily on technological disruption across media. Previous to that he covered corporate, economic and political news in Brazil while at Bloomberg. RT has interviewed a diverse cast of characters including CEOs, media moguls, top influencers, politicians, blue-collar workers, drug traffickers and convicted criminals. Holds a master's degree in Digital Sociology.