Loader
logologo
Alpha Zone
Analysts
My Reading List
Log in
DeFiGaming & MetaverseInfrastructureMarketsNFTs
The Pendle Wars: An Analysis of DeFi's Latest Battleground
Osgur Murphy O Kane
main
Key Takeaways
6 min read
  • Penpie and Equilibria have risen as the two main contenders in the ‘Pendle Wars’. Both launched in June 2023 and have risen to $43m and $30m TVL respectively at the time of writing.
  • This reports looks at the Smart Money wallets holding both tokens, the top depositors for the ‘vote locked tokens’, and the TVLs of both projects.
  • The success of these projects is dependent on the success of Pendle itself. Their relative success to each other depends on their ability to execute. DeFi wars have so far proven to trend to monopolistic and oligopolistic market structures, so there could be a winner takes most outcome, or room for both to thrive.
  • All new DeFi protocols carry high risk, and the protocol's covered in this report add an additional layer of smart contract and governance risk on top of Pendle.

Introduction

The 'Pendle Wars' refers to Equilibria and Penpie seeking to accumulate PENDLE and liquidity on Pendle Finance. This PENDLE is then locked as vePENDLE, which grants holders a share of the revenue generated on Pendle Finance, increases yield to LP positions, and gives governance over the protocol’s emissions.

But what is Pendle Finance?

Pendle Finance enables the yield-trading of yield-bearing crypto assets based on the concepts of bonds. This has resulted in the rapid TVL on Ethereum and Arbitrum, which has increased almost 10x since the start of the year.

Pendle Finance splits the underlying yield-bearing asset into its principal and yield tokens, allowing investors to buy assets at a discount and earn...