Finance
Maple Finance TVL More Than Doubles Leading Up to New Retail Arm – The Defiant
The DeFi protocol hit all-time high TVL and revenue in June.
Maple Finance’s total-value locked (TVL) growth is accelerating after the launch of its retail-focused product, Syrup.fi.
Maple’s TVL increased by 123% in the second quarter, hitting an all-time high of $230 million, according to Dune Analytics. The protocol’s quarterly revenue also jumped by 39%. Maple’s strong performance in June was capped off with the launch of Syrup.fi on June 25. The rest of the DeFi market increased by roughly 9% in the same time period, per DeFiLlama.
The growth spurt is indicative of the demand for institutional-grade products leveraging high yield and real world assets (RWAs) as well as the anticipation for a retail extension of Maple Finance. The current structure is also well incentivized, with Maple users earning up to 23% on digital assets, and Syrup users accruing “Drips”, which are akin to points.
Co-founder Joe Flanagan told The Defiant, “Maple’s growth is attributed to our secured lending products that provide yield from loans to the largest institutions fully backed by digital assets.”
He continued, “we are providing the best risk-adjusted yield in the space and people are starting to recognize it.”
Maple Finance is a decentralized finance (DeFi) market designed to connect accredited investors with institutional lenders and borrowers. Maple is only available to users who have performed know-your customer checks and meet regulatory standards for the product.
Maple’s resurgence comes after its TVL got crushed during the FTX fallout, when $36 million worth of loans owed to Maple were defaulted on.
Retail-Focused Syrup.fi
In addition to its institutional product, the team has recently launched a retail-focused arm, dubbed Syrup.fi. The team is gradually rolling out Syrup.fi, which has accrued more than $13 million in TVL since its launch on June 25.
Syrup offers permissionless access to Maple’s yield, which is generated from collateralized lending to institutions. The product will also return composable LP tokens in the form of syrupUSDC, which can be utilized elsewhere in DeFi.
Syrup users will be accumulating Drips through Maple’s muti-season early access phase. Drips will entitle users to an allocation of Maple’s upcoming Syrup token, which is expected to migrate with their MPL token in Q4 2024.
High-Yield Secured Pool
Maple’s recent outperformance began prior to the launch of Syrup.fi, with the launch of its High Yield Secured pool, touting a target of 15% net APY.
The protocol’s secured lending arms are over-collateralized with liquid digital assets such as BTC, USDC, and ETH. Currently, Maple’s secured pools make up $147 million of its $230 million TVL.
Maple Cash is the platform’s RWA pool that is backed by short-dated U.S. Treasury bills. Maple Cash’s TVL has doubled since March, increasing to $20 million from $11 million, however it does still sit below its all-time high TVL of $31 million from October 2023.
Syrup’s season one will end on July 31, with the MPL token migration slated for Sept. 30.
Finance
Low-income Chinese girl aces gaokao, inspires live-streamers offering help
A girl from a disadvantaged rural family in central China topped this year’s gaokao, attracting numerous live-streamers eager to finance her education, which she declined.
The home of 18-year-old secondary school graduate Han Yaping in a Henan province village was recently bustling with live-streamers.
This attention came after Han achieved an impressive score of 699 out of 750 in the gaokao, China’s national college entrance exam.
She has received offers from China’s two leading universities, Tsinghua University and Peking University.
Han’s accomplishment is particularly remarkable given her family’s impoverished circumstances.
Her mother suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine, preventing her from working. Her father, who earns a living through farming and odd jobs, serves as the family’s sole provider. Han also has a younger sister.
Finance
UK financial regulator publishes landmark AI review
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a landmark review on Monday that proposes recommendations to regulate the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the financial decisions made by consumers.
The review, titled the Mills Review, anticipates that both consumers and firms will start delegating “more financial decision-making to AI systems,” including for agreements, initiating transactions, and executing decisions “within agreed parameters.” One of the key findings of the review outlined that while AI can help bridge advice gaps and “support growth,” there remain risks “associated with fraud, cyber security, and consumer harm.” Conducting the review, Sheldon Mills highlighted that “AI can also amplify risks: bias, discrimination, exclusion, opaque decision-making (particularly when multiple AI models interact), misleading or hallucinatory advice and erosion of consumer trust.”
The review stated that presently, one in five adults in the UK are “already open to AI making decisions for them,” particularly when decisions feel “complex or high stakes.” It found that roughly 26 percent of the population “trust general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for financial advice” with little awareness that such platforms provide no “formal routes to recourse” or protections.
Overall, the Mills Review identified four areas that it anticipates will be impacted by AI in the financial sector: “the transformation of firms,” “new consumer journeys,” “a reshaped competition landscape,” and “amplified financial crime and cyber risk.” The FCA projected the shift in how consumers and firms consult AI to take place by 2030.
The Mills Review put forth seven “priority” recommendations to be considered by the FCA Board. It recommended that any transitions to autonomous AI models be monitored and that regulatory frameworks and perimeters be adapted and secured. The review called for the strengthening of “system-wide coordination and oversight,” the scaling up of the FCA’s AI Lab to enable it to support AI models and innovation for agentic finance, and an “AI-enabled agentic supervisory model” to be built and adopted. Finally, it recommended that a trusted “public-interest AI-enabled financial capability service” be developed.
The FCA announced, in the press release, that it will launch an AI “good and poor practice publication” in late 2026.
Finance
Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approves audit contract, new finance director position
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – The Fayette County Public Schools Board of Education approved a one-year audit contract capped at $131,750 plus $225 per hour during a virtual meeting Monday, along with a new finance director job description.
The contract is with Mauldin & Jenkins Certified Public Accountants, an Atlanta-based firm, and covers the 2025-26 fiscal year and the restatement of the 2024-25 fiscal year and ancillary services through FY 2029-2030. The work is set to be completed by Nov. 15.
The board approved the contract in a 5-0 vote.
Audit contract details
Interim Chief Financial Officer Kyna Koch said the cost is already accounted for in the district’s budget.
“And is actually less than we expected given our current situation — we were thrilled with the bid,” Koch said.
Koch said she believes this is Mauldin & Jenkins’ first school district audit in Kentucky, but that the firm works with school districts of more than 100,000 students throughout the Southeast.
“Quite frankly when I spoke to the folks at KDE they were thrilled because we’re running kind of short of auditors who want to do school district audits — so all around I think this was a win-win for everyone,” Koch said.
New finance director position
The board also approved a new job description for the position of Director of Finance. Acting Superintendent Dr. Bill Bradford said the title will replace two associate director positions.
“Which will not only save the school district money but it’s also going to streamline our work and align internal controls to make room for a more efficient unit,” Bradford said.
Koch said the position will be posted as soon as possible following the board’s approval.
Closed session
The board went into closed session for more than an hour to discuss pending investigations that could lead to employee discipline. When the board returned, it took no action and adjourned the meeting.
Copyright 2026 WKYT. All rights reserved.
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