Pendle

Pendle is a decentralized finance protocol that allows users to separate yield-bearing assets into their principal and future-yield components, then trade each component independently. The problem it addresses is that holders of yield-bearing tokens — such as liquid staking tokens or lending-market deposits — have no direct way to lock in, sell, or trade the yield they expect to earn before it actually accrues. Pendle is built for DeFi participants who want more precise control over how they manage and allocate that future income.

When a user deposits a yield-bearing asset into Pendle, the protocol mints two tokens: one representing the principal and one representing the yield expected to accrue up to a fixed expiry date. These tokens are then tradeable on Pendle's own automated market maker, which is designed to handle the time-decay property that makes yield tokens lose value as their expiry approaches. The PENDLE token is used in governance and, through staking, entitles holders to a share of protocol revenue, with approximately 2.05 percent of market capitalization distributed to holders on an annualized basis as of the trailing 30-day period.

Pendle earns fees from trading activity on its AMM and from yield flowing through the protocol. Over the trailing 30 days the protocol collected 632,090 dollars in fees and 622,636 dollars in protocol revenue, implying a take rate of roughly 98.5 percent of fees flowing to the protocol rather than to liquidity providers — supply-side revenue for that same 30-day period was 9,454 dollars. Holders of staked PENDLE received 498,111 dollars of that revenue over the trailing 30 days. Fees over the trailing 12 months reached 20,572,013 dollars, though the 30-day fee figure is down approximately 92 percent compared to the prior 30-day period, indicating a sharp recent decline in activity.