• Institutional crypto lending firm Maple Finance unveils its Syrup platform and rewards token.

• The new permissionless service aimed at DeFi users targets 15% yields sourced from fully collateralized loans to the largest institutions in the crypto space.

Cryptocurrency lending firm Maple Finance has unveiled Syrup, a new loans platform and rewards token of the same name, aiming to bridge the gap between institutional-friendly yield-bearing digital assets and the permissionless world of decentralized finance (DeFi).

Maple’s Syrup promises users yields of 15% by depositing Circle’s USDC stablecoin into the platform, for which those users receive LP tokens (syrupUSDC), with additional yield in the form of “Drips,” a loyalty payment derived from using the SYRUP rewards token, Maple said in a press release on Tuesday.

Holders of MPL, Maple's native token, will be out to migrate to the SYRUP token at a one-for-one basis.

Many centralized crypto lending firms took a battering over the last couple of years. Maple has weathered the storms of the bear market thanks to its buttoned-up approach, offering permission-only deposits from accredited investors with full know-your-customer (KYC) checks, which allows the firm to operate in the U.S. serving larger regulation-conscious institutions, said Maple co-founder Joe Flanagan.

“We want to maintain that institutional focus, but also ensure we're staying close to our DeFi roots,” Flanagan said in an interview. “The launch of syrup enables us to operate within the broader DeFi ecosystem. So we can bring the same institutional quality yields that are sourced from over collateralized loans to the largest institutions in the space, and bring that into a DeFi audience.”